The Day Of The Performance.
Woke up today feeling much better than yesterday which was a rather traumatic day indeed. There was much to arrange and a lot of co-ordination needed. I felt we would have been better served to have been able to rehearse this morning. However, conflicting schedules would not allow it. I arrived in college early to speak to Marlisa about how last night’s rehearsal went and also in a last-minute panic regarding Risk Assessments. I really should have been more on the ball in regards to this and dealt with the issue earlier. Unfortunately the college Health and Safety Officer was off but her colleague was extremely helpful and after slightly tweaking a pre-existing standard Risk-Assessment it was decided that all bases had been covered and the show was OK to proceed. I was still fairly uncertain as to where the production stood in regards to props. Although I had contacted my friend in the theatre it was still not 100% that the main-prop – The Bar- would arrive and this was very stressful as I felt the bar was now at this point in time pivotal to the production. As far as other bar furniture was concerned the sourcing of such items proved to be an easier prospect. I was popped into town and through my connections with the local pub trade was able to source a number of bar-stools to add to the pub-feel of the production. Back at college I then arranged getting the drinks for the free-bar. All of this had been pre-arranged with the President of the Student’s Association. However, as usual, a break-down in communication led to another minor altercation with members of the housekeeping staff regarding college licensing policy. This very nearly caused yet another element of the production which had begin essential to the performance and audience experience to nearly have to be axed also. This was all very stressful and although it was swiftly rectified only serves to further highlight the need for communication. Note to self though: Don’t ever ask for a donation for entry on the door to cover drink costs. Out of the 60 people that were there I ended up with £40 and no drink left at the end!
I feel that the last week has shown that one of the best desicions I have made regarding this production was ask Marty Page to come onboard as stage manager. Marty has been able to co-ordinate sound-engineers, lighting and projections as well as organise many other elements of the event and without his input, help and support the production would have proven even more disastrous (if that could be possible) and I would have spent this time as even more of a nervous wreck than I had already become. Although events had conspired to make the intended screen-projections that were to form part of the original concept impossible, we were able to provide some back-projection that helped to set the scene.
By the time the stage had been set up, and initial sound check carried out and all members of the cast were present we were left with very little time to run the songs or rehearse any of the linking dialogue. I decided it was best to rehearse the songs we had not managed to get through last night and go through some of the beginnings and endings of the more challenging or less well rehearsed songs from the rest of the set. I would have to rely upon my cast’s familiarity with the storyline and improvisational abilities in regards to any dialogue that would occur during the actual performance.
The performance itself went much better than I think anyone had expected given the number of setbacks that had beset the production from the beginning. The sound onstage was lacking and I found it difficult to hear anything from the piano being lost in the monitor-mix which had been fine during rehearsal but for some reason was poor during the performance. I believe I made more than a few mistakes and botched a few chords. I don’t feel that this was through lack of preparation on my own part as I am very familiar with all of the songs in the set. However, I feel that it was easy to get lost due to a combination of poor sound-quality, leading the band, keeping an eye on the singers and also nerves. I feel that the I could have rectified the first point by indicating to the sound desk that I couldn’t hear myself in the monitors. However, I was unsure of how to do this due to the theatrical nature of the show (I felt the technical side shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with the performance). I think that the other points were all down to experience and also confidence and I feel that in places the pressure got to me. I was horribly nervous. I hope that the more I become involved in shows of this nature the more my confidence and ability will grow.
I think that many will possibly question having alcohol on-stage as part of the production. However, I feel that it added to the performance rather than detracted from it and I was pleased that everyone involved was actually rather sensible with it.
Overall it is a huge relief to have the whole thing over and done with. I feel that I have made a lot of mistakes along the way and I have been disappointed that what had originally been intended failed to come together. But equally I have learned a huge amount about what is required to put together a performance such as this and have been taught some valuable lessons about myself. Could I have done more? Should I have approached things differently? Did I attempt to take on too much? The answer to these questions is most definitely yes. However, I am also proud of what was achieved at the end of the day.
Monday, 23 May 2011
15-16/05/11
Oh my word. What a couple of days it has been. Sunday was entirely taken up with finishing The Dissertation from hell. I think that when all is said and done it could have been better and it could have been worse. Again, I ran into time management issues. I seem to always leave everything to the last minute. I am not sure whether I allow this to happen because I work better under pressure but it seems as though the this deadline period over the last 3 years has seen me attempting to herniate my brain in getting work in on time. Every time I say next year I must be more prepared. I must use my time wisely. I must start earlier. Why do I never take my own advice? However, I feel that this year has been an unmitigated ball of stress and I have absolutely no desire to undergo this whole fiasco again and therefore I have contacted a friend who is a trained life-coach. Hopefully she will be able to help me become more organised and goal-oriented. For honours year I will be aiming to have at least a rough draft of my dissertation done before Christmas.
I am still a little bit in awe that my dissertation was written, printed, bound and delivered on time.
As far as organisation of the musical is concerned having had only 3 hours sleep in the last 48 I was a little on edge to say the least during rehearsal tonight. The hall was not set up this afternoon and the engineers I had hoped would be able to help were not available. Therefore myself, Marty and Nick began to organise the stage set-up with Mark McClymont taking over a little later. This was not the original plan (that being that we would all be able to do a full run-through in the hall that night). However, we started the rehearsal in the practice rooms and then when the stage was ready moved to the hall. The rehearsal went much better after this. I also think that having 16 people in a small room is stressful in any situation let alone when there is singing and playing involved. All in all I am a bit worried that everyone is still singing from lyric sheets. With this in mind I wonder if there was ever going to be any hope for the script ever!? Although the thought of tomorrow is more stressful than mere words can describe I feel that having gone through the majority of the songs relatively hitch-free I just might be able to get a decent sleep tonight.
I am still a little bit in awe that my dissertation was written, printed, bound and delivered on time.
As far as organisation of the musical is concerned having had only 3 hours sleep in the last 48 I was a little on edge to say the least during rehearsal tonight. The hall was not set up this afternoon and the engineers I had hoped would be able to help were not available. Therefore myself, Marty and Nick began to organise the stage set-up with Mark McClymont taking over a little later. This was not the original plan (that being that we would all be able to do a full run-through in the hall that night). However, we started the rehearsal in the practice rooms and then when the stage was ready moved to the hall. The rehearsal went much better after this. I also think that having 16 people in a small room is stressful in any situation let alone when there is singing and playing involved. All in all I am a bit worried that everyone is still singing from lyric sheets. With this in mind I wonder if there was ever going to be any hope for the script ever!? Although the thought of tomorrow is more stressful than mere words can describe I feel that having gone through the majority of the songs relatively hitch-free I just might be able to get a decent sleep tonight.
09/05/11
It has been done. The script has been pulled and I have also had to cut songs. Rehearsals yesterday and today have been painful to say the least. I have resigned myself to the fact that SOMETHING will happen on the 17th. What that exactly will be is anyone’s guess at the moment! At the moment we are sitting at a set that will consist of 22 songs. I think that this is enough to still get two acts. I am hoping that if the stage is still set up theatrically to reflect the setting that the cast will feel comfortable enough to still adopt some of their original character as set out in the script. I feel that it is still possible with the correct staging to make the production still retain a feeling of spectacle rather than just a straightforward gig. No point in flogging a dead horse as they say.
In other news I am still ploughing away at the dissertation of doom. I feel that I have been able to now work out a coherent structure and valid route of argument. I feel the jist of the investigation is to answer the question as to why when Britpop was not a politically vociferous movement that it seems always to be discussed within a political context. I pose that this is because when commentators discuss Britpop they are really referring to Blur. There are lots of parallels that can be drawn between New Labour and Blur, explaining the seemingly inseparable nature of New Labour and Britpop. In order to argue this I must firstly justify that Blur are the Quintessential Britpop Act and then go onto describe the similarities mentioned above. And all in 5000 words or so.
In other news I am still ploughing away at the dissertation of doom. I feel that I have been able to now work out a coherent structure and valid route of argument. I feel the jist of the investigation is to answer the question as to why when Britpop was not a politically vociferous movement that it seems always to be discussed within a political context. I pose that this is because when commentators discuss Britpop they are really referring to Blur. There are lots of parallels that can be drawn between New Labour and Blur, explaining the seemingly inseparable nature of New Labour and Britpop. In order to argue this I must firstly justify that Blur are the Quintessential Britpop Act and then go onto describe the similarities mentioned above. And all in 5000 words or so.
6/5/11
Today was the culmination of practices for JP’s Reggae Project. Brilliant fun. We spent the morning in the theatre having a run through of a few songs and then retreated to a rehearsal room to run through few dance steps with Marlisa. I had brought my face paints along and some costumes. Only performing backing vocals made me actually quite nervous. I’m very used to hiding behind my piano so being up front of stage with nothing acting as a barrier between myself and the audience was a little odd. But also liberating - You can’t really dance with a piano! I think this experience has been a very enjoyable eye-opener. I’m sure I was a bit atrocious in places but the whole spirit of the set and performance has attracted some very favourable feedback and I’m really happy and proud that JP asked me to be a part of it as it has provided some much needed relief from the ‘For Tomorrow’ debacle!
3/5/11
Awful awful day. I believe myself to be in the midst of a major cast up-rising (Ok, slight exaggeration.) I won’t say too much about the ins and outs of it but practice today went terribly. After shifting everyone down to the dance-studio I hoped that we would be able to work on the staging. Although it has been nigh on impossible to get full rehearsals I thought that at least, as most of the cast were friends with at least one other member that rehearsing and familiarising the lines in the mean time would have allowed us to get on with blocking the scenes. We got to about scene 4 before members of cast started dropping like flies. I think I have probably tried to incorporate too much when we have such a short space of time. However, I’m finding it really hard to let go considering that this should have been a viable production given the amount of time that has passed since it was first written and cast. I have a really important decision to make in regards to how this project can go ahead. It seems to me that the options are to cut portions of the script or to pull the script all together and just do the songs. It’s really sad to have to go this way but I feel that the latter option will be the best when it seems that even learning lyrics is a struggle. I asked everyone tonight to pull together just for these 2 remaining weeks and to prioritise this production as it was going to be a struggle but I felt that everyone was more than capable and talented of making it a brilliant show. In doing this I have been accused of attempting to blame members of the cast for this production failing to come together, of holding unproductive rehearsals or cancelling rehearsals all together and also of guilting people into missing rehearsals for other people’s shows. I would be the first to hold my hand up and say that I have been too ambitious with this production and better organisation would have benefitted the whole project. It is, however, almost impossible to hold productive rehearsals when a vast number or the cast are unable to gather together at the same time and attempts at holding script-rehearsals when main cast members have not been able to make it have led to frustration and are not just a waste of their time but also a waste of mine. It also is unproductive when nobody pays attention and acts as though they would rather be doing something else. I should have stuck to my guns regarding rehearsal times. Having a definite set rehearsal time every week for both the band and cast and sticking to it would have been the best thing to do. If people weren’t able or willing to make a decent proportion of these times then I should have tried to recast the roles. Instead I tried to accommodate everyone else’s priorities and allowed this project to fall to the back of the queue and for that I am obviously a poor manager and quite possibly unfit to direct! However, I think that everyone is aware that a project like this where no one is being paid is a labour of love and requires team-work and dedication and at times I don’t feel that this production has received that. If (and that’s a big IF right now) I ever attempt a similar project in the future I will be firm with my rehearsal and production schedules and set firm deadlines. I need to remember at the end of the day that this is MY degree and I need to do whatever ever it takes to succeed in it. That is all...Rant Completed ...Over and Out.
28/04/11
Yesterday was Alex’s Lord Of The Bling’s project for which I arranged the props and the make-up. I really enjoy working behind the scenes as part of a team to help a production come-together and it was a great feeling to be part of this production but also not to have to experience the nerves and stress of being on-stage for once.
There was quite a lot of running about involved today trying to source last minute props (which I am discovering I have a knack for) and scheduling time in which to ensure everyone had their make-up, props and costumes organised. I have realised from watching how this show has come together how important it is going to for my own show to have the support of a stage manager and production staff if everything is to come together.
26/04/11
This is the proposed rehearsal schedule. We have less than 3 weeks to nail it and this is the minimum rehearsals I think we can get away with if we are to pull it off.
SINGERS STILL TO LEARN SONGS - Thurs 28th - Early afternoon
BAND - Monday 2nd-evening + any cast who want to go over songs
CAST - Tuesday 3rd - evening til 9pm
CAST - Thursday 5th - morning/afternoon,
BAND - Thursday 5th - evening
BAND - Sunday 8th - anytime - with Rob ?
BAND & CAST Monday 9th - rehearsal with cast - OFF SCRIPT
BAND AND CAST Tuesday 10th - Marlisa to be there
BAND & CAST Wednesday 11th - rehearsal with cast
BAND - Sunday 15th ... (hopefully fingers crossed .. blitz the set?)
BAND & CAST Monday 16th - technical rehearsal
BAND & CAST Tuesday 17th - afternoon - full dress rehearsal
BAND & CAST Tuesday 17th - 7.30pm performance
SINGERS STILL TO LEARN SONGS - Thurs 28th - Early afternoon
BAND - Monday 2nd-evening + any cast who want to go over songs
CAST - Tuesday 3rd - evening til 9pm
CAST - Thursday 5th - morning/afternoon,
BAND - Thursday 5th - evening
BAND - Sunday 8th - anytime - with Rob ?
BAND & CAST Monday 9th - rehearsal with cast - OFF SCRIPT
BAND AND CAST Tuesday 10th - Marlisa to be there
BAND & CAST Wednesday 11th - rehearsal with cast
BAND - Sunday 15th ... (hopefully fingers crossed .. blitz the set?)
BAND & CAST Monday 16th - technical rehearsal
BAND & CAST Tuesday 17th - afternoon - full dress rehearsal
BAND & CAST Tuesday 17th - 7.30pm performance
23/04/11
It has been impossible to gather everyone together in the same place at the same time over the last 2 weeks. I am trying to organise rehearsals for next week but everyone has their own shows. If I postpone rehearsals until after the major shows are finished it only leaves me 2 weeks to pull the production together. This is a double nightmare when nobody yet seems to know all their songs let alone their lines. I am putting together a rehearsal schedule. I really hope that everyone will stick to it.
Old Skool Steve Lamacq Interview
A little something to fill the void of the holidays. Yesterday a friend sent me a copy of an Interview I conducted for Virtual Festivals.Com in May 1999 back at the butt-end of Britpop. It’s with Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq who was the man about town back then as far as the British music scene. I remember him looking on the verge of death when I met him in the pub near BBC Centre. Had a good chat and a few pints... anyway the reason I’m posting it here is because of its relevance to my dissertation topic. Lamaqc was a close friend of Blur and we spoke quite a bit about them during the interview. He was also there at the very beginning of Britpop ... back in the day... Anyway, here’s the edited version 12 years on....
Interview with Steve Lamacq
It has just turned 12 O’clock and we are sitting in a pub, not too far from the studios of Radio One. We are waiting for radio legend, Steve Lamacq, DJ, compare and champion of alternative music. Lamacq is late. We ponder over the question, “How do you interview the man who has interviewed everyone from The Stone Roses (from under a desk), to Nirvana (in a one roomed hovel near Earls Court). Finally he arrives, looking almost dead. Hard night then? For want of a better place to start, we start at the beginning.
Do you still remember your first interview?
“I remember the first one I did for the NME. It was a band called The ‘God Fathers’ and I used to write a fanzine and I spent 6 months trying to get 'The God Fathers' to do an interview and then I got a job at the NME and it took six hours. It was just like that. Some of the early interviews ones at Radio One – Evan Dando most of the stuff around about that point, around 93 –94 was the emerging Brit pop. We did quite a big interview with Blur. It was one of the first ones I was really chuffed with on the radio. It was quite an in-depth one with Blur around the time of Parklife. I think, not maliciously but they can be a little tricky, a little difficult Blur can sometimes because I’m almost the worst person to interview them anyway cause I’ve vaguely known them on and off for years - Ever since when the first single came out. I saw Blur when they were called Seymour in a pub in South London. They were playing in front of about forty people and it was a lot punkier. They were all just bouncing around and falling into each other and it was a bit of shambles.”
Ah. The Blur connection. Lamacq even part owns a greyhound with Blur's lead singer, Damon Albarn.
“We all got into a phase where we all got interested with Greyhound racing for all different sorts of reasons. His was sort of cultural, reading books about that sort of culture and also Andy Ross, who runs food records, used to be a bookies runner so basically he’s terrific at gambling and knows loads about horses and greyhound racing and we all just sort of fell into it really. So we bought a dog. The first one was called ‘Honest Guv’ and the second ones called ‘Honest Injun’ which is an old school phrase we used to use but the second one is rubbish. The first one was very good actually it was amongst the top twenty long distance dogs in the country about three years ago but the second one is rubbish. I mean he could run a race tonight and he would still be running on Tuesday. It’s that hopeless - poor thing.”
Considering the close friendship with Blur, it must be difficult to interview people like Justine Frischman (Elastica) Brett Anderson (Suede) and Oasis, (all of whom have well publicised, rocky relationships with the band.) Is this the case?
"No. It’s strange actually; you sort of separate it out. I think if they had more of a problem with it I’d probably have more of a problem with it but they don’t seem to at all. It’s more difficult with maybe Blur and Oasis. And that was mainly from the Oasis side. Oasis knew that I’m from Colchester. I’m an Essex boy. I'm bound to side with the noncey Southerners in any argument and apart from a couple of singles along the way I’ve always been quite a fan of Blur. I’ve always written about them right from the start. That was more difficult interviewing Oasis. It’s like ‘You are the enemy’. But having said that Noel is a really pleasant fellow apart from when you get onto football."
"The worst thing is trying to interview the person you’re friends with. You can sometimes know too much. You think Oh yeah I better ask them this and they just look at you like this is what we talked about on the phone and your like, “Well…no. I’ve got to ask you professionally.”
Pushing the issue further we ask his opinion on the Mogwai V Blur fracas at T in the Park. Surely this must have been doubly difficult with Mogwai playing the stage for which Lamacq was compare. With the impartiality of a true journalist Lamacq, again, disagrees.
"You see again the thing that salvages it really is that Mogwai are just very strong in their beliefs about stuff but they’re not taste Nazis where they would fall out with you if you liked a band that they didn’t like. I think they enjoy having the argument. So if you can sit down and argue why you like something and they argue why they don’t then that’s almost what they’re trying to achieve. Mogwai are really good because they create some debate, they’ve thought about the music whereas some people treat pop-music in a sort of glib manner. They add a little sense of analysis to it, which just makes people think more. Even with our audience it gets a bit too lead-along sometimes by whatever’s in trend at the moment or just peer pressure. People say they like things without thinking why they do. I know pop music should be spontaneous but at the same time it’s interesting to find out more about why you like something. I’ve always been very concerned with trying to put music in to context - work out why things really are good."
Comparing at festivals, writing about festivals, you would think that Steve Lamacq was seasoned a festival lover. Wrong again!
"I didn’t go to festivals for years. I only had two rules of life when I first joined the NME 1. Never go to gigs South of the river. 2. Never go to outdoor festivals. Live your life by these rules you’ll never go wrong. And then I messed this up completely by A. Moving South of the river and B. Getting a job where I had to go to festivals. I didn’t go to a festival until... I don’t know what year it was. It was probably about 1990. Quite late and it was awful. It was terrible. I can’t remember that much about who played but the New Model Army were on and there was hoards of their fans in clogs. I just thought it was messy, bad, the sound was rubbish and I never wanted to go back but then the NME had to keep going back after that and then I got the job comparing. With Radio One last year I went Reading, Glastonbury V99. After swearing I’d never go to a festival I found myself going to like five in year. You just get dried off and then it’s time to go to another one."
The conversation inevitably turns to the mother of all festivals, Glastonbury and even more inevitably, the weather at Glasto ’98.
“The problem was you just couldn’t sit down. The whole thing about Glastonbury is sort of lolling around. Maybe listen to a bit of music and the other thing is you had two years of Glastonbury that were really wet and nasty and when I go to festivals, if I do go to festivals, I really like going out and seeing bands not necessarily on the big stages but in the new band tents and you just can’t walk around. It’d take you forty minutes to walk from one end of the site to the other end and you would just get to one tent. By the time you get there you might have missed the band that you wanted to see and then you’d have to slog all the way back.”
What about the line-ups this year?
"I think it’s all right. The thing is someone will always be good at a festival. Usually the people who do well at festivals are the ones that are a surprise. Look at all the big hits at Glastonbury over the years and it’s always the ones that people had no expectations of. The year that no one really thought that Oasis were much, Oasis were brilliant. The year when Oasis headlined and everyone thought it was going to be the best thing in the world, Orbital were the best, over in the other tent. Oasis went on stage and did all these new songs which no one had heard before off the new album and it was a bit of a let down. So people build up their expectations so high sometimes bands can’t pull it off.
One year I saw ‘The Reverend Haughton Heath’. I'd never really taken any notice of them. Wasn’t really into them at all and they came on the main stage at Reading and were fantastic. Really good entertainment. Really good festival group. Good tunes good spirit and that was one of the highlights of the weekend. It’s all about the things that are surprising. Glastonbury this year for me was the dance tent. I can’t dance to save my life. No sense of rhythm what so ever but when you understand that Drum ‘n’ Bass and Jungle music is effectively Reggae speeded up andIF you don’t dance to the drum you dance to the base then it works. But I saw loads of things. I went to see Fabio and Grooverider DJ-ing. Break Beat Era I had never seen before. Never taken any notice of them but they were superb. Really really good. So there’s always stuff going.
You have to realise for some bands it’s a really big thing. Even the most confident ones are surely gonna have a little devil on their shoulder saying ‘You might fuck up. You might get it wrong. You might fall on your arse on front of 50,000 people.’ Surely? I mean I get it when I’m comparing at Reading. My major fear is that when I’m introducing the band I’ll forget who it is or I’ll end up introducing the wrong one. Please welcome on stage Fountains of Wayne and there's Bis standing there looking at me. Touch wood it’s never happened but there was one year where I had in fact forgotten. Fortunately I wear a laminate that’s got all the bands names on but I got to the stage where I was like ‘Please welcome …er...a band… a band that really need no introduction whatsoever. But we’ll make some noise anyway for…’ It’s really nerve racking.
The thing is, I’d like to go to a festival where I wasn’t working I could just go and like most of the punters do and actually get pissed. But you can’t really go and get drunk. I have to do an end of night announcement so you’ve still got to be able to talk reasonably sensibly at whatever time, half past eleven, just to say 'take it easy on the way out of the site. 'If you wanna go down the Rivermead there’s a club open. See you back down here at eleven o'clock tomorrow. Take Care. So you can’t get pissed. Otherwise you’d be like ‘Sleep in the Rivermead, go to a club in your tent, be back here in two days at eleven tomorrow at night in the morning…’
Are you disappointed that you’re not going to get to see the bands on the up and coming Carling stage.
Yeah. It’s always the problem but the way we got over this last year is there's a guy at The Mean Fiddler called Neil Pengelly - he’s a really great bloke and last year we managed to commandeer a little moped type of thing and he used to buzz around the site on the back of that around the outside of the perimeter fence So it’s like ‘what time is it? Bentleys are on.’ Jump on the back of the bike. Mad dash around, see two songs and then where are we going next? So, that’s how we did it last year. It gets better as the day goes on because obviously all the sets get longer so if the band are on stage for an hour you’ve got an hour to run around and see as much as you can.
I have to play records and shout a bit. That’s what compairing is. It’s not exactly rocket science y’know. But it always happens on a Sunday just when you’re thinking two days down only one to go they put all the rock bands on. The loudest, noisiest all on the one day and last year it was Page and Plant. I mean what do you play before Page and Plant go on?
What’s your opinion on Page and Plant?
They are very scary. I’m all for people who are past their sell by date to be put into a different league. They have to go and do something else. Like footballers have over thirty fives leagues. I think like old people have to reapply for their driving licence the oldest rock people should have to reapply for a kind of music licence. If they can’t hack it their music licence should be revoked and they won’t be allowed to release records anymore.
Someone puts the Rolling Stones on the jukebox. I ask whether their licences should be taken away.
Yeah in about 1980. I suppose the Stones are better than some though. I’m actually more appalled by people like Sting. They should be held over the Thames on the end of a crane and made to re-consider what they are doing.
What’s the most memorable moment at a festival?
Underworld at Reading. It was in the new bands tent which was the NME tent back then and it’s not that big Born Slippy had just been released and it was a huge hit. I managed to get off to around the site to go and see some things and I arrived just as they were going into Born Slippy and looking out from the back of the stage I could just see the crowd going absolutely mental and it was just chaos in there. That was brilliant. And the Foo Fighters in that tent one year and they hadn’t really done anything over here yet and there were so many people trying to get into the tent and there was loads of talk about whether they should move to the main stage. In the end it was a really exciting set and the sense of anticipation before they came on. Just watching people’s faces at gigs, especially at festivals - This is what they’ve come for this is their moment. It’s the bands moment and it’s their moment. There a real sense of camaraderie and it’s really hard to capture that. The Verve, at T in the Park, before they split up, I was comparing at T in the Park again on the NME stage and they were absolutely mesmeric and Richard Ashcroft was in a world of his own. He was walking around early backstage in his bare feet in his own little world. People say that bands came on and played like their life depended on it but that was like a life and death gig. It was like life or death for the band. ‘Will the band carry on or is this the end? We’ll take it as far as we possibly can.’ It was brilliant.
Your worst moment?
My worst moment at a festival was the year that the Stone Roses played at Reading and I organised an interview for Radio 1 cause we had a back stage porta-studio. I’d had a heavy night and halfway through the Sunday afternoon I think, before I was supposed to interview them I’d just introduced a band on stage and went to have a quick lie down. I woke up an hour later being prodded by a producer saying ‘Steve there's some people here who say you’re supposed to be interviewing them.’ And so as I climbed up from under the desk there was The Stone Roses. Not the way to start an interview them seeing you lying on the floor having never met them before. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you? Who are you? What time is it?’
How did you take over from John Peel?
It’s because the Mean Fiddler had to festivals at the time. They were gonna get Peel to do Phoenix and me to do Reading. People said after he stopped doing it he actually had more fun cause he could wander around and see more groups cause you are actually tied to the stage a bit. You don’t get to see your mates much. You’ve got a band on stage for half an hour. You can run to the bar say Hi to someone, run back sort your records out, play them, introduce another band then run back to the bar and it goes on like that for three days. The other thing about festivals is that people always imagine backstage as really glamorous and really exciting. Me and some mates of mine have nick named it ‘The Nest Of Vipers’ cause what it is is a load of people who just come down and lig. It’s not really that exciting and there are so many people there doing it it’s more rammed back there than it is out the front. It isn’t glamorous. I think people expect marbled toilets and fantasise about all the luxuries that you get back stage and it’s just as much of a pigpen as it is out front really.
Do you think that twin festivals stop all the fun for the bands?
I think bands sometimes bands think that it does but when you think about it they get two chances of meeting all these different people. I think that they secretly enjoy it. They just moan about having to travel and not being able to stay over night and not getting to sit down get pissed and shill out at the end of it. But surely there are other nights where you can do that. I think it’s good. Anything which encourages devolution of musical power away from the south. The South used to have all the festivals and none of the talent. I’m so pleased about T in the Park. Because the audience is terrific and it’s slightly less ‘cool’. Scottish people don’t care whether you’re fashionable or not. They just care about whether you’re any good. They’ll give you a chance whoever you are and if you’re good they’ll really like you and if you’re bad they really really really dislike you bad that’s the chance you take. SO it’s good that you can get the festivals further north now. I can’t believe there's never anything around the Manchester area. Leeds is a really good idea and it’ll do for now. It’s ridiculous really that the music industry is all down here when all the bands come from Glasgow or Manchester and places like that.
The best gig?
Certainly not Blondie. Blondie were the worst. I was a bit let down by all the old punk-rockers and the new-wavers at Glastonbury. That was a little depressing. Probably Faithless and the Fun Lovin’ Criminals at Tin the Park. I thought they were going off the boil for a while and even given the fact they’ve introduced these noodly jazz guitar bits and heavy guitar solos, I thought they were brilliant. Mogwai on the Evening Session stage at T in the Park and a band called Doves from Manchester. There have been quite a few good things along the way.
You’ve championed Idlewild along the way.
I think song wise there’s loads more to come from Idlewild. There’s a sort of similarity between Idlewild and Blur in that Blur, even when they were just fooling around being kind of a punky noisy creation; they could obviously really play. They really understood how to play. Quite talented people really and I think the same about Idlewild. The thing that Idlewild have to do is forget about trends and making records for radio and stuff. But I think also the next stage in the development of Idlewild is actually in their characters and talking to them cause they’re actually really interesting people. There’s a lot going on in their heads. I think they could end up sounding like REM but like a spiky REM. Which is like Nirvana. Kurt Cobain used to say that one of his big, driving influences was REM cause he wanted the tunes of REM mixed with the punk noise of the late seventies and I think there’s a touch of that about Idlewild in that you can try and marry the two things together. REM now, bring an instant yawn around my house but some of the stuff they did was very clever and good at the time.
What new bands to you rate at the moment?
It’s been a bit strange really. I think that Muse are going to do quite well. We had them on the Evening Session tour. But the thing I’ve found is that bands develop at different rates. Bands that you sometimes tip early on take will take longer to get there. Doves make some really interesting music but whether it’s right for the time and whether they’ll sell loads of records, I kind of don’t think they will but that doesn’t stop them being a fantastic band. Muse are probably more likely to happen just on the basis that’s it’s kind of the sound that’s more right for the time. I think in the run up to Christmas I can see a sort of second wave of MTV punk rock – 'Lining Ends' and 'Blink 182'. Blink 182 I think are going to do really well. It’s gonna be American bands and Australian bands. Bands with long shorts. That’s where everything’s shifting slightly. There’s nothing come through post-Britpop. There are lots of bands re-inventing themselves but nothing that I think that’s going to sell loads of records. But then again I’m not very good at picking out bands. I seem to go for ‘I like this record’ and ‘I like that record’. The Angelica single, which is out at the moment, is the tops. They’re these four girls from Lancashire and I got this compilation album of new bands and they were on that. And then they did a single but had to go off and finish their exams. And then they came back again with this new record. They’re really really good. They’re the sort of band, on-stage, that’ll look like they’re gonna break if you look at them too hard.
But I genuinely think that everything’s turning around and everything’s going to start happening again. On the ten-year basis that the start of the 1990’s was the most exciting times in music that I’ve ever lived through. I was editing the ‘ON’ page at the NME at the time and in the first six months of 1990 we did The Charlatans, Lush, Blur, loads about Teenage Fanclub. All these bands suddenly emerged out of nowhere, without warning. The tips for the year at the start of the year had none of these bands in it. Then all of a sudden, each week, a record came out. I think it might happen again.
The other thing is that all the bigger companies are all looking at the age demographic and the number of teenagers in the country starts rising again in the first part of the year 2000. The number of teenagers has been going down and in tandem so has record sales and singles sales and interest in music and when it starts going up and that’ll be in about the middle of 2000, that’s when you expect the next pop revolution to happen.
What do you think about Internet sites covering music and festivals?
I think it’s great. Radio one had a little web-cam at Glastonbury. Which I thought was quite good. I wasn’t quite so pleased about the pictures of me and Jo Whiley looking like we’d been left out in the sun to dry. But I think it’s good. In a way it’s fulfilling the same job that Radio One tries to do in bringing a festival to people who can’t get there. Whether you can’t get there because you haven’t got the money or you’re too young or your parents won’t let you go or just happens to be that you can’t get there. And it’s great. The one thing that the Internet has got over everyone else is that you find it’s having quite a big impact on everyone outside of the UK. There are a lot of Anglophiles in the States and people who like British music around the world and for them it’s a unique opportunity to find out what’s going on. It’s the global nature of the Internet that has the most impact.
Are you going to go into TV like Jo Whiley?
No! (Holds a cigarette packet up to my face and tells me to ask that question again). Try to look at an inanimate object whist trying to say something funny and interesting doesn’t work. I’d quite like to do something if there was the right vehicle to do it. The problem with TV shows is that you have to compromise your music policy more than you have to on radio. I mean I wouldn’t go and do a daytime show for instance, because you’d have to play things that you didn’t really like or want to plat and most of the TV shows don’t give you the space or the opportunity to put on the bands that you’d really like to. We had this idea that we’d like to a programme called ‘Fantasy Record Industry’ and we’d role play the life of a band in a kind of ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ style. So you’d create a band…what happens next? The singer leaves. SO what are you going to do? Advertise in ‘LOOT’. Audience- What do you think of that…? And so on. Something like that would be really fun to do. We’d have a couple of bands on as well. If the right thing came along I’d do it but I’m not desperate to get into television.
What advice would you give someone who wants to be a DJ?
Don’t’ worry if you get turned down. Just keep doing stuff and do radio where ever you can. Famously, I even got turned down by my local hospital radio and hospital radio is obviously the lowest of the low but I got turned down by Colchester Hospital Radio. I started off by doing pirate radio, which is obviously against the law, it’s not to be encouraged… (Lamacq smiles slyly at this comment) I have to say all this as I work for the BBC otherwise they’d sack me! But it was a good experience. Then I went down and helped out at GLR. I knew somebody that knew somebody that knew Gary Crowley and I just said ‘I work for the NME. I can bring loads of records in.’ And then I learned how to edit tape and he let me do a gig guide. Just try and get as much experience as you can. We’ve got a couple of producers that virtually turned up on work experience and then kept coming back every so often. After about 18 months they went for a job and got it. That’s because they’d been there. They knew how Radio One worked. You get a break as long as you don’t give up. I’d wanted to be a DJ since I was a kid and I’d almost given up on it but sooner or later, if you’re really committed to doing something someone will give you a chance. If you then go and fuck it up it’s your own fault.
C.1999 Ali Pibworth
Interview with Steve Lamacq
It has just turned 12 O’clock and we are sitting in a pub, not too far from the studios of Radio One. We are waiting for radio legend, Steve Lamacq, DJ, compare and champion of alternative music. Lamacq is late. We ponder over the question, “How do you interview the man who has interviewed everyone from The Stone Roses (from under a desk), to Nirvana (in a one roomed hovel near Earls Court). Finally he arrives, looking almost dead. Hard night then? For want of a better place to start, we start at the beginning.
Do you still remember your first interview?
“I remember the first one I did for the NME. It was a band called The ‘God Fathers’ and I used to write a fanzine and I spent 6 months trying to get 'The God Fathers' to do an interview and then I got a job at the NME and it took six hours. It was just like that. Some of the early interviews ones at Radio One – Evan Dando most of the stuff around about that point, around 93 –94 was the emerging Brit pop. We did quite a big interview with Blur. It was one of the first ones I was really chuffed with on the radio. It was quite an in-depth one with Blur around the time of Parklife. I think, not maliciously but they can be a little tricky, a little difficult Blur can sometimes because I’m almost the worst person to interview them anyway cause I’ve vaguely known them on and off for years - Ever since when the first single came out. I saw Blur when they were called Seymour in a pub in South London. They were playing in front of about forty people and it was a lot punkier. They were all just bouncing around and falling into each other and it was a bit of shambles.”
Ah. The Blur connection. Lamacq even part owns a greyhound with Blur's lead singer, Damon Albarn.
“We all got into a phase where we all got interested with Greyhound racing for all different sorts of reasons. His was sort of cultural, reading books about that sort of culture and also Andy Ross, who runs food records, used to be a bookies runner so basically he’s terrific at gambling and knows loads about horses and greyhound racing and we all just sort of fell into it really. So we bought a dog. The first one was called ‘Honest Guv’ and the second ones called ‘Honest Injun’ which is an old school phrase we used to use but the second one is rubbish. The first one was very good actually it was amongst the top twenty long distance dogs in the country about three years ago but the second one is rubbish. I mean he could run a race tonight and he would still be running on Tuesday. It’s that hopeless - poor thing.”
Considering the close friendship with Blur, it must be difficult to interview people like Justine Frischman (Elastica) Brett Anderson (Suede) and Oasis, (all of whom have well publicised, rocky relationships with the band.) Is this the case?
"No. It’s strange actually; you sort of separate it out. I think if they had more of a problem with it I’d probably have more of a problem with it but they don’t seem to at all. It’s more difficult with maybe Blur and Oasis. And that was mainly from the Oasis side. Oasis knew that I’m from Colchester. I’m an Essex boy. I'm bound to side with the noncey Southerners in any argument and apart from a couple of singles along the way I’ve always been quite a fan of Blur. I’ve always written about them right from the start. That was more difficult interviewing Oasis. It’s like ‘You are the enemy’. But having said that Noel is a really pleasant fellow apart from when you get onto football."
"The worst thing is trying to interview the person you’re friends with. You can sometimes know too much. You think Oh yeah I better ask them this and they just look at you like this is what we talked about on the phone and your like, “Well…no. I’ve got to ask you professionally.”
Pushing the issue further we ask his opinion on the Mogwai V Blur fracas at T in the Park. Surely this must have been doubly difficult with Mogwai playing the stage for which Lamacq was compare. With the impartiality of a true journalist Lamacq, again, disagrees.
"You see again the thing that salvages it really is that Mogwai are just very strong in their beliefs about stuff but they’re not taste Nazis where they would fall out with you if you liked a band that they didn’t like. I think they enjoy having the argument. So if you can sit down and argue why you like something and they argue why they don’t then that’s almost what they’re trying to achieve. Mogwai are really good because they create some debate, they’ve thought about the music whereas some people treat pop-music in a sort of glib manner. They add a little sense of analysis to it, which just makes people think more. Even with our audience it gets a bit too lead-along sometimes by whatever’s in trend at the moment or just peer pressure. People say they like things without thinking why they do. I know pop music should be spontaneous but at the same time it’s interesting to find out more about why you like something. I’ve always been very concerned with trying to put music in to context - work out why things really are good."
Comparing at festivals, writing about festivals, you would think that Steve Lamacq was seasoned a festival lover. Wrong again!
"I didn’t go to festivals for years. I only had two rules of life when I first joined the NME 1. Never go to gigs South of the river. 2. Never go to outdoor festivals. Live your life by these rules you’ll never go wrong. And then I messed this up completely by A. Moving South of the river and B. Getting a job where I had to go to festivals. I didn’t go to a festival until... I don’t know what year it was. It was probably about 1990. Quite late and it was awful. It was terrible. I can’t remember that much about who played but the New Model Army were on and there was hoards of their fans in clogs. I just thought it was messy, bad, the sound was rubbish and I never wanted to go back but then the NME had to keep going back after that and then I got the job comparing. With Radio One last year I went Reading, Glastonbury V99. After swearing I’d never go to a festival I found myself going to like five in year. You just get dried off and then it’s time to go to another one."
The conversation inevitably turns to the mother of all festivals, Glastonbury and even more inevitably, the weather at Glasto ’98.
“The problem was you just couldn’t sit down. The whole thing about Glastonbury is sort of lolling around. Maybe listen to a bit of music and the other thing is you had two years of Glastonbury that were really wet and nasty and when I go to festivals, if I do go to festivals, I really like going out and seeing bands not necessarily on the big stages but in the new band tents and you just can’t walk around. It’d take you forty minutes to walk from one end of the site to the other end and you would just get to one tent. By the time you get there you might have missed the band that you wanted to see and then you’d have to slog all the way back.”
What about the line-ups this year?
"I think it’s all right. The thing is someone will always be good at a festival. Usually the people who do well at festivals are the ones that are a surprise. Look at all the big hits at Glastonbury over the years and it’s always the ones that people had no expectations of. The year that no one really thought that Oasis were much, Oasis were brilliant. The year when Oasis headlined and everyone thought it was going to be the best thing in the world, Orbital were the best, over in the other tent. Oasis went on stage and did all these new songs which no one had heard before off the new album and it was a bit of a let down. So people build up their expectations so high sometimes bands can’t pull it off.
One year I saw ‘The Reverend Haughton Heath’. I'd never really taken any notice of them. Wasn’t really into them at all and they came on the main stage at Reading and were fantastic. Really good entertainment. Really good festival group. Good tunes good spirit and that was one of the highlights of the weekend. It’s all about the things that are surprising. Glastonbury this year for me was the dance tent. I can’t dance to save my life. No sense of rhythm what so ever but when you understand that Drum ‘n’ Bass and Jungle music is effectively Reggae speeded up andIF you don’t dance to the drum you dance to the base then it works. But I saw loads of things. I went to see Fabio and Grooverider DJ-ing. Break Beat Era I had never seen before. Never taken any notice of them but they were superb. Really really good. So there’s always stuff going.
You have to realise for some bands it’s a really big thing. Even the most confident ones are surely gonna have a little devil on their shoulder saying ‘You might fuck up. You might get it wrong. You might fall on your arse on front of 50,000 people.’ Surely? I mean I get it when I’m comparing at Reading. My major fear is that when I’m introducing the band I’ll forget who it is or I’ll end up introducing the wrong one. Please welcome on stage Fountains of Wayne and there's Bis standing there looking at me. Touch wood it’s never happened but there was one year where I had in fact forgotten. Fortunately I wear a laminate that’s got all the bands names on but I got to the stage where I was like ‘Please welcome …er...a band… a band that really need no introduction whatsoever. But we’ll make some noise anyway for…’ It’s really nerve racking.
The thing is, I’d like to go to a festival where I wasn’t working I could just go and like most of the punters do and actually get pissed. But you can’t really go and get drunk. I have to do an end of night announcement so you’ve still got to be able to talk reasonably sensibly at whatever time, half past eleven, just to say 'take it easy on the way out of the site. 'If you wanna go down the Rivermead there’s a club open. See you back down here at eleven o'clock tomorrow. Take Care. So you can’t get pissed. Otherwise you’d be like ‘Sleep in the Rivermead, go to a club in your tent, be back here in two days at eleven tomorrow at night in the morning…’
Are you disappointed that you’re not going to get to see the bands on the up and coming Carling stage.
Yeah. It’s always the problem but the way we got over this last year is there's a guy at The Mean Fiddler called Neil Pengelly - he’s a really great bloke and last year we managed to commandeer a little moped type of thing and he used to buzz around the site on the back of that around the outside of the perimeter fence So it’s like ‘what time is it? Bentleys are on.’ Jump on the back of the bike. Mad dash around, see two songs and then where are we going next? So, that’s how we did it last year. It gets better as the day goes on because obviously all the sets get longer so if the band are on stage for an hour you’ve got an hour to run around and see as much as you can.
I have to play records and shout a bit. That’s what compairing is. It’s not exactly rocket science y’know. But it always happens on a Sunday just when you’re thinking two days down only one to go they put all the rock bands on. The loudest, noisiest all on the one day and last year it was Page and Plant. I mean what do you play before Page and Plant go on?
What’s your opinion on Page and Plant?
They are very scary. I’m all for people who are past their sell by date to be put into a different league. They have to go and do something else. Like footballers have over thirty fives leagues. I think like old people have to reapply for their driving licence the oldest rock people should have to reapply for a kind of music licence. If they can’t hack it their music licence should be revoked and they won’t be allowed to release records anymore.
Someone puts the Rolling Stones on the jukebox. I ask whether their licences should be taken away.
Yeah in about 1980. I suppose the Stones are better than some though. I’m actually more appalled by people like Sting. They should be held over the Thames on the end of a crane and made to re-consider what they are doing.
What’s the most memorable moment at a festival?
Underworld at Reading. It was in the new bands tent which was the NME tent back then and it’s not that big Born Slippy had just been released and it was a huge hit. I managed to get off to around the site to go and see some things and I arrived just as they were going into Born Slippy and looking out from the back of the stage I could just see the crowd going absolutely mental and it was just chaos in there. That was brilliant. And the Foo Fighters in that tent one year and they hadn’t really done anything over here yet and there were so many people trying to get into the tent and there was loads of talk about whether they should move to the main stage. In the end it was a really exciting set and the sense of anticipation before they came on. Just watching people’s faces at gigs, especially at festivals - This is what they’ve come for this is their moment. It’s the bands moment and it’s their moment. There a real sense of camaraderie and it’s really hard to capture that. The Verve, at T in the Park, before they split up, I was comparing at T in the Park again on the NME stage and they were absolutely mesmeric and Richard Ashcroft was in a world of his own. He was walking around early backstage in his bare feet in his own little world. People say that bands came on and played like their life depended on it but that was like a life and death gig. It was like life or death for the band. ‘Will the band carry on or is this the end? We’ll take it as far as we possibly can.’ It was brilliant.
Your worst moment?
My worst moment at a festival was the year that the Stone Roses played at Reading and I organised an interview for Radio 1 cause we had a back stage porta-studio. I’d had a heavy night and halfway through the Sunday afternoon I think, before I was supposed to interview them I’d just introduced a band on stage and went to have a quick lie down. I woke up an hour later being prodded by a producer saying ‘Steve there's some people here who say you’re supposed to be interviewing them.’ And so as I climbed up from under the desk there was The Stone Roses. Not the way to start an interview them seeing you lying on the floor having never met them before. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you? Who are you? What time is it?’
How did you take over from John Peel?
It’s because the Mean Fiddler had to festivals at the time. They were gonna get Peel to do Phoenix and me to do Reading. People said after he stopped doing it he actually had more fun cause he could wander around and see more groups cause you are actually tied to the stage a bit. You don’t get to see your mates much. You’ve got a band on stage for half an hour. You can run to the bar say Hi to someone, run back sort your records out, play them, introduce another band then run back to the bar and it goes on like that for three days. The other thing about festivals is that people always imagine backstage as really glamorous and really exciting. Me and some mates of mine have nick named it ‘The Nest Of Vipers’ cause what it is is a load of people who just come down and lig. It’s not really that exciting and there are so many people there doing it it’s more rammed back there than it is out the front. It isn’t glamorous. I think people expect marbled toilets and fantasise about all the luxuries that you get back stage and it’s just as much of a pigpen as it is out front really.
Do you think that twin festivals stop all the fun for the bands?
I think bands sometimes bands think that it does but when you think about it they get two chances of meeting all these different people. I think that they secretly enjoy it. They just moan about having to travel and not being able to stay over night and not getting to sit down get pissed and shill out at the end of it. But surely there are other nights where you can do that. I think it’s good. Anything which encourages devolution of musical power away from the south. The South used to have all the festivals and none of the talent. I’m so pleased about T in the Park. Because the audience is terrific and it’s slightly less ‘cool’. Scottish people don’t care whether you’re fashionable or not. They just care about whether you’re any good. They’ll give you a chance whoever you are and if you’re good they’ll really like you and if you’re bad they really really really dislike you bad that’s the chance you take. SO it’s good that you can get the festivals further north now. I can’t believe there's never anything around the Manchester area. Leeds is a really good idea and it’ll do for now. It’s ridiculous really that the music industry is all down here when all the bands come from Glasgow or Manchester and places like that.
The best gig?
Certainly not Blondie. Blondie were the worst. I was a bit let down by all the old punk-rockers and the new-wavers at Glastonbury. That was a little depressing. Probably Faithless and the Fun Lovin’ Criminals at Tin the Park. I thought they were going off the boil for a while and even given the fact they’ve introduced these noodly jazz guitar bits and heavy guitar solos, I thought they were brilliant. Mogwai on the Evening Session stage at T in the Park and a band called Doves from Manchester. There have been quite a few good things along the way.
You’ve championed Idlewild along the way.
I think song wise there’s loads more to come from Idlewild. There’s a sort of similarity between Idlewild and Blur in that Blur, even when they were just fooling around being kind of a punky noisy creation; they could obviously really play. They really understood how to play. Quite talented people really and I think the same about Idlewild. The thing that Idlewild have to do is forget about trends and making records for radio and stuff. But I think also the next stage in the development of Idlewild is actually in their characters and talking to them cause they’re actually really interesting people. There’s a lot going on in their heads. I think they could end up sounding like REM but like a spiky REM. Which is like Nirvana. Kurt Cobain used to say that one of his big, driving influences was REM cause he wanted the tunes of REM mixed with the punk noise of the late seventies and I think there’s a touch of that about Idlewild in that you can try and marry the two things together. REM now, bring an instant yawn around my house but some of the stuff they did was very clever and good at the time.
What new bands to you rate at the moment?
It’s been a bit strange really. I think that Muse are going to do quite well. We had them on the Evening Session tour. But the thing I’ve found is that bands develop at different rates. Bands that you sometimes tip early on take will take longer to get there. Doves make some really interesting music but whether it’s right for the time and whether they’ll sell loads of records, I kind of don’t think they will but that doesn’t stop them being a fantastic band. Muse are probably more likely to happen just on the basis that’s it’s kind of the sound that’s more right for the time. I think in the run up to Christmas I can see a sort of second wave of MTV punk rock – 'Lining Ends' and 'Blink 182'. Blink 182 I think are going to do really well. It’s gonna be American bands and Australian bands. Bands with long shorts. That’s where everything’s shifting slightly. There’s nothing come through post-Britpop. There are lots of bands re-inventing themselves but nothing that I think that’s going to sell loads of records. But then again I’m not very good at picking out bands. I seem to go for ‘I like this record’ and ‘I like that record’. The Angelica single, which is out at the moment, is the tops. They’re these four girls from Lancashire and I got this compilation album of new bands and they were on that. And then they did a single but had to go off and finish their exams. And then they came back again with this new record. They’re really really good. They’re the sort of band, on-stage, that’ll look like they’re gonna break if you look at them too hard.
But I genuinely think that everything’s turning around and everything’s going to start happening again. On the ten-year basis that the start of the 1990’s was the most exciting times in music that I’ve ever lived through. I was editing the ‘ON’ page at the NME at the time and in the first six months of 1990 we did The Charlatans, Lush, Blur, loads about Teenage Fanclub. All these bands suddenly emerged out of nowhere, without warning. The tips for the year at the start of the year had none of these bands in it. Then all of a sudden, each week, a record came out. I think it might happen again.
The other thing is that all the bigger companies are all looking at the age demographic and the number of teenagers in the country starts rising again in the first part of the year 2000. The number of teenagers has been going down and in tandem so has record sales and singles sales and interest in music and when it starts going up and that’ll be in about the middle of 2000, that’s when you expect the next pop revolution to happen.
What do you think about Internet sites covering music and festivals?
I think it’s great. Radio one had a little web-cam at Glastonbury. Which I thought was quite good. I wasn’t quite so pleased about the pictures of me and Jo Whiley looking like we’d been left out in the sun to dry. But I think it’s good. In a way it’s fulfilling the same job that Radio One tries to do in bringing a festival to people who can’t get there. Whether you can’t get there because you haven’t got the money or you’re too young or your parents won’t let you go or just happens to be that you can’t get there. And it’s great. The one thing that the Internet has got over everyone else is that you find it’s having quite a big impact on everyone outside of the UK. There are a lot of Anglophiles in the States and people who like British music around the world and for them it’s a unique opportunity to find out what’s going on. It’s the global nature of the Internet that has the most impact.
Are you going to go into TV like Jo Whiley?
No! (Holds a cigarette packet up to my face and tells me to ask that question again). Try to look at an inanimate object whist trying to say something funny and interesting doesn’t work. I’d quite like to do something if there was the right vehicle to do it. The problem with TV shows is that you have to compromise your music policy more than you have to on radio. I mean I wouldn’t go and do a daytime show for instance, because you’d have to play things that you didn’t really like or want to plat and most of the TV shows don’t give you the space or the opportunity to put on the bands that you’d really like to. We had this idea that we’d like to a programme called ‘Fantasy Record Industry’ and we’d role play the life of a band in a kind of ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ style. So you’d create a band…what happens next? The singer leaves. SO what are you going to do? Advertise in ‘LOOT’. Audience- What do you think of that…? And so on. Something like that would be really fun to do. We’d have a couple of bands on as well. If the right thing came along I’d do it but I’m not desperate to get into television.
What advice would you give someone who wants to be a DJ?
Don’t’ worry if you get turned down. Just keep doing stuff and do radio where ever you can. Famously, I even got turned down by my local hospital radio and hospital radio is obviously the lowest of the low but I got turned down by Colchester Hospital Radio. I started off by doing pirate radio, which is obviously against the law, it’s not to be encouraged… (Lamacq smiles slyly at this comment) I have to say all this as I work for the BBC otherwise they’d sack me! But it was a good experience. Then I went down and helped out at GLR. I knew somebody that knew somebody that knew Gary Crowley and I just said ‘I work for the NME. I can bring loads of records in.’ And then I learned how to edit tape and he let me do a gig guide. Just try and get as much experience as you can. We’ve got a couple of producers that virtually turned up on work experience and then kept coming back every so often. After about 18 months they went for a job and got it. That’s because they’d been there. They knew how Radio One worked. You get a break as long as you don’t give up. I’d wanted to be a DJ since I was a kid and I’d almost given up on it but sooner or later, if you’re really committed to doing something someone will give you a chance. If you then go and fuck it up it’s your own fault.
C.1999 Ali Pibworth
5/04/11
Have my daughter with me at college today due to school holidays. Think she really enjoyed it. It’s been a full day with a rehearsal for JP’s Reggae project, Session Skills, band rehearsal for the musical and then script rehearsal. Rob was able to come to both rehearsals today and Liam who has stepped in as narrator was also able to come. He was brilliant as he stepped straight into character and really brought things alive. The only problem is that now college is on holiday for 2 weeks and half the band and cast are away for the first week and half for the second. I’ve asked everyone to really familiarise themselves with the script and learn their lines anyway they can as it’s important that we try to be off script by after the holidays. If we can manage this then we can use the remaining times to rehearse everything with the band and block off scenes. If everyone has their songs learned it should hopefuly be fairly straight forward. I am keeping my proverbial fingers crossed although I am not holding my breath.
29/03/11
Had a second short practice today with Mark and John. It helped to reaffirm some of the material that we went over the previous night and as some of the cast members were available it was also possible for them to try out their vocals as well. I am concerned about the upcoming Easter break. It doesn’t leave us with particularly much time to get everything done that I had hoped. I constantly feel that I am asking too much of everyone. I think I need to be tougher and more focussed. Sigh. Everyone was able to make it for another script run through tonight but while adding in songs and actions. I have decided that next week we will concentrate on nailing the most pivotal scenes or those with the most dialogue.
29/03/11
Had a second short practice today with Mark and John. It helped to reaffirm some of the material that we went over the previous night and as some of the cast members were available it was also possible for them to try out their vocals as well. I am concerned about the upcoming Easter break. It doesn’t leave us with particularly much time to get everything done that I had hoped. I constantly feel that I am asking too much of everyone. I think I need to be tougher and more focussed. Sigh. Everyone was able to make it for another script run through tonight but while adding in songs and actions. I have decided that next week we will concentrate on nailing the most pivotal scenes or those with the most dialogue.
28/03/11
First rehearsal for the musical with the band tonight - Only three of us could make it. Never-the-less, for a first rehearsal it went well and helped to alleviate some of the anxiety the guys were feeling in regards to how the structure of the songs would work. At this late stage, rather than being the gesamtkuntswerk(!) I had originally envisioned, with much of the music accompanying the action on stage instead of being a solely narrative device, I have pared down the songs and music that will be included. I hope that I will be able to develop the concept further for fourth year and expand the score in order to produce a less disjointed feel. Tonight we covered the more well known songs that will be included in the musical. The real work will be on the less familiar tunes, such as those originally performed by Shed Seven, Sleeper and The Levellers.
27/03/11
Sunday afternoon rehearsal at my house sucked. People turned up at different times or did not turn up at all. On the upside I cooked Sunday dinner. Still I’m too depressed to talk about rehearsal. It’s bloody embarrassing.
23/03/11
Went to see Strathallan school’s production of Beauty and The Beast tonight. It was really enjoyable and surprisingly professionally executed. It has left me thinking about radio mics and band set up. The main performers all wore hairline microphones. Not as clunky as the cheek ones that you see. Have been looking up hire-costs and they look to cost a fortune. Also, with the lack of orchestra pit the band was set up behind stage. I’d like to find out how this worked in terms of cues etc. The main characters were mostly from the upper forms of the school. In comparison to my memories of school-shows, there was no self-conciousness, some amazing performances, everything was really well sang and acted. I wonder if it is the private school environment that fosters the kind of confidence to be able to perform with such aplomb. If we manage to pull-off a performance of even half that standard I will be happy.
22/03/11
Session Unit today was based around sight-reading. We were given parts and had half an hour to rehearse and then record them. From previous sessions we were all well aware of the need to be reliable and concise in our playing and execution of the piece. After all, time is money in session land and the ability to be able to produce a product with as few takes as possible, or ideally in the first take, doth a happy client make. The piece we were to play was ‘Just The Two Of Us’. I was relieved to find that I had little problem with the piano part. It was fairly straightforward with no complicated rhythmical features, being based around block chords that served to provide a pad for the more rhythmically complex bass and acoustic guitar parts. The chords were written out in full with no chord symbols written on the piece; a feature of the music which I have grown used to. I can’t say whether this made the task more or less difficult for me, although the fact that I am mentioning it here must have ‘struck a chord’ (!) As with the previous session John, the drummer, played to click. I was therefore very aware of trying not to push the tempo, as had happened while recording ‘Caledonia’. As I mentioned before there is a natural tendency to speed up when playing together as a live band even in a recording situation, which makes it almost impossible to record over-dubs of other instruments and vocals, so guarding against this is extremely important. I think I achieved the task although I question whether the lack of rhythmical features in the keys part, and also the fact that the part was scored rather than left to interpretation helped me in this. It is something I will keep working on in future sessions. Happily we all had our parts down quickly. The method of approaching each section separately before playing through the piece as a whole helped with this. Therefore the main obstacle to producing a swift recording was in the geography of the piece. There were quite a few repeated sections and, as Lorenz, who was leading the session today pointed out it is these features of the music that can become the main sticking point in a session-situation. It can be very easy, when relaxing into the actual playing, to become distracted and lose concentration, and therefore your place in the music. I have myself, on occasion, found myself wondering ‘what repeat are we on’? Have we already done this bit? I find that this is even more the case when playing without any vocals which usually act as a cue to repeats and sections. I feel that maintaining this level of concentration whilst also producing a track that sounds relaxed and natural is challenging and something that comes with experience and confidence. This is an area that I will concentrate on in the personal development of my playing. We played through the track once on record and, acting as the client Lorenz then decided how much of the piece we should repeat in order to meet his requirements. This differs from the method we used previously, in which we worked out mathematically the optimum tempo at which we should play in order to produce a piece of music to a specific length of time. We then went onto nail the piece on our first take. I feel that this is due to thorough preparation before the engineer has hit the record button and highlights that it is not only imperative to possess the ability to play the music but also the ability to maintain concentration.
22/03/11
Today I delivered a presentation to the dissertation research conference at college. The need to do this had taken me somewhat by surprise as I had thought that the conference was not until the following week, which yet again highlights my need to be more organised. Therefore, the presentation was hastily put together this morning and last night. Although it was written in a not particularly academic fashion, I was relieved to find that I had enough to say about my dissertation that I was able to write almost 2,600 words on the subject in that short space of time, all of which I feel showed a good working knowledge of my chosen subject. However, I was unable to practice my delivery in conjunction with the power point I had pulled together due to printer malfunction and during my delivery I stumbled through slides. Again, this shows that preparation is the key. I also relied a lot on the written words in front of me. I think that this is partly due to lack of preparation but also due to fear of ‘corpsing’ in front of an audience. For someone who always has a lot to say I always feel that when put on the spot I have a tendency to waffle. I feel that delivery of presentations is an area I really would like to concentrate on in future and an extremely worthwhile point of development not just academically but personally as well. I particularly enjoyed a BA4 student’s presentation on Taiko drumming. It is not a subject that I knew much (if anything) about or something I would have thought on the surface to be of interest to me but the student made his presentation conversational and informative and came across as very knowledgeable, as though he had completely immersed himself in every aspect of his topic. It was apparent that the subject was something he was extremely interested in and an activity he personally participated in himself and I am aware that this may not always be the case for the speaker when delivering a presentation. However, this conversational and enthusiastic style is something I would like to attempt to deliver my own presentations and public addresses in.
10/03/11
Camden Town
It’s been a good while since I’d last been up to visit the old haunts in Camden. We met with Steve Jenner CEO of Virtual festivals and manager with Kili-live who runs Rockness and Sonisphere festival among others in the Good Mixer. We then went onto The Dublin Castle. Still hard to believe how little either of these pubs has changed in the last 15 years. Perhaps they are both a little less dirty and maybe a little quieter than days of old but intrinsically they are still the same, although a lot of Camden has changed around them. Many of the local landmarks have gone, such as the Parkway Bar and the pet and reptile shop that used to dominate that street during the 90’s. The entire building housing the Fusileer and Firkin pub has disappeared entirely. Gap, H&M and American Apparel have all appeared along the High Street as the genericism that pervades so many town centres that once were vibrant and unique slowly creeps its tendrils over the area, gradually choking any individualism there may have once been. I wonder what, if any, is Camden’s cultural relevance now. Perhaps this current corporate saturation makes the period that is addressed in ‘For Tomorrow’, even more meaningful. It is set on the advent of this, just before the bubble completely burst. I find it sad that, as tends to happen with any ‘in’ thing or place, the movers and shakers generally vacate when everyone else cottons onto the trend and in flock the wannabes and tourists. It reminds me of that old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to belong to a club that would accept him as a member. Still, I admire The Good Mixer and Dublin Castle’s reluctance to cash in on the theme park Camden has become. As Steve, pointed out, they could be packed all day and all night, doing a roaring trade in Britpop memorabilia.
It’s been a good while since I’d last been up to visit the old haunts in Camden. We met with Steve Jenner CEO of Virtual festivals and manager with Kili-live who runs Rockness and Sonisphere festival among others in the Good Mixer. We then went onto The Dublin Castle. Still hard to believe how little either of these pubs has changed in the last 15 years. Perhaps they are both a little less dirty and maybe a little quieter than days of old but intrinsically they are still the same, although a lot of Camden has changed around them. Many of the local landmarks have gone, such as the Parkway Bar and the pet and reptile shop that used to dominate that street during the 90’s. The entire building housing the Fusileer and Firkin pub has disappeared entirely. Gap, H&M and American Apparel have all appeared along the High Street as the genericism that pervades so many town centres that once were vibrant and unique slowly creeps its tendrils over the area, gradually choking any individualism there may have once been. I wonder what, if any, is Camden’s cultural relevance now. Perhaps this current corporate saturation makes the period that is addressed in ‘For Tomorrow’, even more meaningful. It is set on the advent of this, just before the bubble completely burst. I find it sad that, as tends to happen with any ‘in’ thing or place, the movers and shakers generally vacate when everyone else cottons onto the trend and in flock the wannabes and tourists. It reminds me of that old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to belong to a club that would accept him as a member. Still, I admire The Good Mixer and Dublin Castle’s reluctance to cash in on the theme park Camden has become. As Steve, pointed out, they could be packed all day and all night, doing a roaring trade in Britpop memorabilia.
9/03/11
London.
Went to see the West-End play, “The woman in black”. Was really not what I had expected. The whole play is performed by 2 actors playing every role (with cameos from THE woman in black of course.) I felt it was really innovative. The premise being that the main protagonist has hired an actor in order to help him tell his traumatic story of his encounter with the woman in black. In order to do so the actor devises a theatrical performance whereby he, himself plays the part of the man and the man (who in the play has no acting experience) takes on all of the other roles in the story. It really becomes a play within a play, almost like in a Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first parts of the play take place with a very basic set and very few props. It provided me with much food for thought in considering how best I might convey all of the places and situations in my production with minimal props and also the set and stage limitations that are an inevitable part of the venue in which it will take place.
Went to see the West-End play, “The woman in black”. Was really not what I had expected. The whole play is performed by 2 actors playing every role (with cameos from THE woman in black of course.) I felt it was really innovative. The premise being that the main protagonist has hired an actor in order to help him tell his traumatic story of his encounter with the woman in black. In order to do so the actor devises a theatrical performance whereby he, himself plays the part of the man and the man (who in the play has no acting experience) takes on all of the other roles in the story. It really becomes a play within a play, almost like in a Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first parts of the play take place with a very basic set and very few props. It provided me with much food for thought in considering how best I might convey all of the places and situations in my production with minimal props and also the set and stage limitations that are an inevitable part of the venue in which it will take place.
21/02/11
I have been thinking of changing Daydreamer by Menswear in Act 8 of the musical for Beetlebum by Blur and perhaps removing ‘Death of a Party’ all together. Menswear were such an iconic part of Britpop (in particular its disposable nature) and there's already loads of Blur in there and although Death Of The Party is one of the more obscure song choices in ‘the book’ choices I originally thought that it fitted really well and that the song effectively stands as Britpop's closing number. However, I'm having to play to the strengths of my performers at the moment and our Howard is essentially a different character from what I had originally envisaged. John is playing a brilliant role but I have had to compromise and re-imagine the character to fit his performing style. I don’t think that John would feel comfortable singing the Menswear number in the intention it was meant. Death of a Party presents its own problems. There are a lot of studio effects there which I feel we may struggle re-creating with in a live-situation. I'm considering also re-working the section where Sophie promises to hang-out with Nev at the bar in scene 8 at The Mixer. I feel I may need to emphasise the point that she has been making a lot of promises like this lately and in turn make it seem that breaking this promise is a real turning point for Nev rather than a knee jerk reaction. I am also thinking of changing a couple of the acoustic songs that Amy has to do. Perhaps changing Ten Story Love Song for Teardrop by Massive Attack as I think it would suit her voice much better. I realise that in a professional production changing what was intended by the writer would be a no-go. However, in these early stages and to push the production along I am willing to make changes as we go. The development of the script is still quite an organic thing and I feel that in the months to come I will review and rewrite sections of dialogue etc.
15 / 02/ 11
No rehearsal today due to Tennessee illness. I’m gradually beginning to realize how logistically tricky this whole project is going to be. Everyone involved has their own projects to do, other course work plus are involved in several other events both in and out of college. Really need to work out how I’m going to be able to schedule this around everyone else’s rehearsals.
08/02/11
Good News: Amy and Wendy confirmed!
Bad News: Jack unable to play bass due to other commitments
Good News: Rob able to take his place. (As well as give additional advice and support!)
Bad News: Finding it difficult to find ensemble members
Good News: Britpop expert likes script.
Bad News: Still need to find a narrator.
Had first read-through of the script tonight with the full cast (minus-narrator). I'm dead chuffed. Obviously the script isn't set in stone some bits could most definitely use some tweaking. I'm also hoping there will be a bit of improv and general banter in parts as members of the cast become more comfortable with each other which will help the staging to seem more relaxed. I am going to start going over some of the songs next week. Much excitement.
Bad News: Jack unable to play bass due to other commitments
Good News: Rob able to take his place. (As well as give additional advice and support!)
Bad News: Finding it difficult to find ensemble members
Good News: Britpop expert likes script.
Bad News: Still need to find a narrator.
Had first read-through of the script tonight with the full cast (minus-narrator). I'm dead chuffed. Obviously the script isn't set in stone some bits could most definitely use some tweaking. I'm also hoping there will be a bit of improv and general banter in parts as members of the cast become more comfortable with each other which will help the staging to seem more relaxed. I am going to start going over some of the songs next week. Much excitement.
01/02/11
Hopefully have managed to find my remaining females leads who are two brilliant singers from HNC, Amy and Wendy. Awaiting reply!
28/01/11
Have managed to finalise some of my cast and band which are as follows:
Jay– Nev
Daryl - Johnno
Alex– Simon
John – Howard
Hannah – Paloma
Mark – Drums
Nick- Additional Keys
Jack – Bass
John – Guitar
Have posted tunes on Spotify. Going to maybe attempt a Monday rehearsal. Apologies for length of post. Busy Busy Busy.
Jay– Nev
Daryl - Johnno
Alex– Simon
John – Howard
Hannah – Paloma
Mark – Drums
Nick- Additional Keys
Jack – Bass
John – Guitar
Have posted tunes on Spotify. Going to maybe attempt a Monday rehearsal. Apologies for length of post. Busy Busy Busy.
20/10/11
Ensemble Evaluation... think this says everything that needs to be said on the subject.
“An Evening At The Cotton Club”
Our ensemble project has in many ways been a steep learning curve, filled with high and low points, disappointment and also a feeling of achievement. In evaluating the development process and final performance I intend to discuss these above issues and the ways in which they have allowed for professional growth, added to my skill set and also highlighted areas for further developmental improvement.
Initially, as a group, we were aware that we would all like the focus of our ensemble project to be the genre of jazz. Although I, personally, had some experience in playing in this style for some members of the band this was an entirely new experience. However, regardless of previous experience, we were all agreed that focussing on this genre would allow us to research and learn new techniques and performance style and would help us to develop a working knowledge of a genre which, although regarded as ‘popular music’, had yet to be covered within our course work.
At this point we met our first hurdle; from a research point of view, jazz is a vast topic with many different branches of development and technical styles. We had all brought our own ideas of songs that we would like play within the band to the table but in reviewing them it seemed impossible to provide an academic justification for a set that would include songs from so many different sub-genres, even though they were all taken from the jazz genus. Therefore, in order to produce a cohesive set and allow us to produce focussed research rather than a broad over-view, it was necessary to narrow the parameters from within which our songs should be chosen from. I feel we dealt with this well and after exploring many different possibilities we were able to agree upon an interesting topic namely ‘The Cotton Club’ which allowed us to explore a musical era which, although was relatively unfamiliar to all of us and didn’t allow us to incorporate any of the songs we had originally desired to play, we approached with enthusiasm. I believe this helps to demonstrate adaptability and willingness to accept new challenges. However, it did take us longer than we had anticipated to settle on this topic and as a result we found ourselves several weeks into the module before serious rehearsal could commence on the actual set itself. On the other hand I feel that this was in some ways unavoidable in the face of the research constraints and in future projects we will be more aware of the limitations and able to forward plan when choosing a research topic accordingly.
We also had to work against preconceptions of jazz. As a five piece we had the basis of the conventional jazz trio but with the inclusion of two guitarists, which, as was pointed out to us, “was two guitarists too many” from a traditionalist view-point. Much of the musical arrangements we looked at within our research called for either paired down traditional jazz instrumentation with just drums, piano and bass or lush big band orchestration. It was therefore necessary for us to approach our own arrangements from a completely different angle; trying to capture the feel and texture of the music whilst updating the arrangements to suit our own instrumentation. We strongly felt that although we may not have been able to faithfully recreate the music as it would have been heard during the 1920’s and 30’s that this should not negate the playing of this music in a modern day setting. This produced further challenges as we explored ways in which we might best meet our aims and at times led to frustration from all members of the band. Again, regardless of setbacks and minor aggravations I feel we achieved our aims and were able to produce a set that incorporated elements of authenticity (including a well executed swing feel on the tracks that warranted it, strong rhythmic and harmonic elements representing the jungle sound, the inclusion of improvisation, stride-piano technique and even developing new technique; Jack wearing gloves in an attempt to recreate a double-bass feel for example) but presented in an unconventional manner: rather than reproducing a facsimile of performances of the era we succeeded in taking ownership of the music.
We were unable to deliver many of the aspects of the performance that we had hoped to achieve when writing our proposal. Originally, although aware that we were limited in the authenticity of the musical arrangements and instrumentation, we had intended to balance our unorthodox rendition of the music by setting the stage and recreating some of the vaudevillian values and glamour of The Cotton Club. We had set out our intentions to have choreographed dancing and table service, some elements of scenery or stage props and even possibly table service and alcohol licence. None of this came to fruition. I believe that this was due to a number of issues, some of our own making and some beyond our control. Organisationally it was difficult to co-ordinate times when we would be able to rehearse with other performers such as dancers. Having taken so long to produce a concrete proposal for the project we also found ourselves faced with time constraints. I feel that in this way, we were disorganised and had we developed better communication and planning skills along with further developing time management, we would have progressed further towards achieving our original aims. However, the adverse weather conditions which arrived towards the end of November and remained throughout the final weeks of term, leading to several days of college closure and huge travel disruptions definitely contributed to our inability to deliver these elements of the performance as we had originally intended.
I feel that our overall performance on the day was well thought out. We tried to produce a set that took the audience on a journey, starting with high octane numbers ‘Sing, Sing Sing’ and ‘ Minnie The Moocher’ moving though more mellow, blues inflected tracks such as ‘Why Don’t You Do Right’ and then raising the tempo once more for the finale. Each track was selected to highlight a different element of jazz during this period, as explained in my research document. I was disappointed that we failed to produce as many tracks as we had outlined as possibilities in the proposal. This was I feel, again down to poor time-management within our rehearsals; our opening track ‘Sing Sing Sing’ was an ambitious arrangement and we spent far too much time focussing on that, which did not leave us ample time to add further songs to the set. In future projects I would definitely try to take more ownership of the set and push us to achieve more. In saying this, I am also very proud of what we achieved with ‘Sing Sing Sing’. It is a complicated track with a complicated arrangement and I feel that we approached and executed the task at the final performance with energy, confidence and obvious enjoyment. We all made the attempt to capture a 1920’s air in our costumes and I feel Jamie’s song introductions added well to the atmosphere and feeling of entertainment. The one aspect of the performance that I feel really frustrated with was when I ‘froze’ at the very beginning of “Someone To Watch Over Me”. Even after weeks of practice I had completely lost the first line of the song and although I continued to vamp through the opening bars I finally had to be fed the first line from Jamie. After this the song went smoothly but the feeling of sheer panic and also of letting the rest of the band down was horrendous. This is the first time this has ever happened to me and I truly hope that it will be the last.
I feel during this process I have been able to develop my communication skills, learn new techniques and build-upon existing ones. I have also had the opportunity to spend time playing with a group of very talented musicians and I we were able to freely exchange ideas and learn from one another. It has also allowed me to identify areas for personal development such as increasing my organisational and time-management skills and realistic goal-setting. In conclusion, I feel that ensemble has provided me with a very worthwhile and positive experience and highlighted many factors to be considered swhen undertaking projects of this nature in the future.
“An Evening At The Cotton Club”
Our ensemble project has in many ways been a steep learning curve, filled with high and low points, disappointment and also a feeling of achievement. In evaluating the development process and final performance I intend to discuss these above issues and the ways in which they have allowed for professional growth, added to my skill set and also highlighted areas for further developmental improvement.
Initially, as a group, we were aware that we would all like the focus of our ensemble project to be the genre of jazz. Although I, personally, had some experience in playing in this style for some members of the band this was an entirely new experience. However, regardless of previous experience, we were all agreed that focussing on this genre would allow us to research and learn new techniques and performance style and would help us to develop a working knowledge of a genre which, although regarded as ‘popular music’, had yet to be covered within our course work.
At this point we met our first hurdle; from a research point of view, jazz is a vast topic with many different branches of development and technical styles. We had all brought our own ideas of songs that we would like play within the band to the table but in reviewing them it seemed impossible to provide an academic justification for a set that would include songs from so many different sub-genres, even though they were all taken from the jazz genus. Therefore, in order to produce a cohesive set and allow us to produce focussed research rather than a broad over-view, it was necessary to narrow the parameters from within which our songs should be chosen from. I feel we dealt with this well and after exploring many different possibilities we were able to agree upon an interesting topic namely ‘The Cotton Club’ which allowed us to explore a musical era which, although was relatively unfamiliar to all of us and didn’t allow us to incorporate any of the songs we had originally desired to play, we approached with enthusiasm. I believe this helps to demonstrate adaptability and willingness to accept new challenges. However, it did take us longer than we had anticipated to settle on this topic and as a result we found ourselves several weeks into the module before serious rehearsal could commence on the actual set itself. On the other hand I feel that this was in some ways unavoidable in the face of the research constraints and in future projects we will be more aware of the limitations and able to forward plan when choosing a research topic accordingly.
We also had to work against preconceptions of jazz. As a five piece we had the basis of the conventional jazz trio but with the inclusion of two guitarists, which, as was pointed out to us, “was two guitarists too many” from a traditionalist view-point. Much of the musical arrangements we looked at within our research called for either paired down traditional jazz instrumentation with just drums, piano and bass or lush big band orchestration. It was therefore necessary for us to approach our own arrangements from a completely different angle; trying to capture the feel and texture of the music whilst updating the arrangements to suit our own instrumentation. We strongly felt that although we may not have been able to faithfully recreate the music as it would have been heard during the 1920’s and 30’s that this should not negate the playing of this music in a modern day setting. This produced further challenges as we explored ways in which we might best meet our aims and at times led to frustration from all members of the band. Again, regardless of setbacks and minor aggravations I feel we achieved our aims and were able to produce a set that incorporated elements of authenticity (including a well executed swing feel on the tracks that warranted it, strong rhythmic and harmonic elements representing the jungle sound, the inclusion of improvisation, stride-piano technique and even developing new technique; Jack wearing gloves in an attempt to recreate a double-bass feel for example) but presented in an unconventional manner: rather than reproducing a facsimile of performances of the era we succeeded in taking ownership of the music.
We were unable to deliver many of the aspects of the performance that we had hoped to achieve when writing our proposal. Originally, although aware that we were limited in the authenticity of the musical arrangements and instrumentation, we had intended to balance our unorthodox rendition of the music by setting the stage and recreating some of the vaudevillian values and glamour of The Cotton Club. We had set out our intentions to have choreographed dancing and table service, some elements of scenery or stage props and even possibly table service and alcohol licence. None of this came to fruition. I believe that this was due to a number of issues, some of our own making and some beyond our control. Organisationally it was difficult to co-ordinate times when we would be able to rehearse with other performers such as dancers. Having taken so long to produce a concrete proposal for the project we also found ourselves faced with time constraints. I feel that in this way, we were disorganised and had we developed better communication and planning skills along with further developing time management, we would have progressed further towards achieving our original aims. However, the adverse weather conditions which arrived towards the end of November and remained throughout the final weeks of term, leading to several days of college closure and huge travel disruptions definitely contributed to our inability to deliver these elements of the performance as we had originally intended.
I feel that our overall performance on the day was well thought out. We tried to produce a set that took the audience on a journey, starting with high octane numbers ‘Sing, Sing Sing’ and ‘ Minnie The Moocher’ moving though more mellow, blues inflected tracks such as ‘Why Don’t You Do Right’ and then raising the tempo once more for the finale. Each track was selected to highlight a different element of jazz during this period, as explained in my research document. I was disappointed that we failed to produce as many tracks as we had outlined as possibilities in the proposal. This was I feel, again down to poor time-management within our rehearsals; our opening track ‘Sing Sing Sing’ was an ambitious arrangement and we spent far too much time focussing on that, which did not leave us ample time to add further songs to the set. In future projects I would definitely try to take more ownership of the set and push us to achieve more. In saying this, I am also very proud of what we achieved with ‘Sing Sing Sing’. It is a complicated track with a complicated arrangement and I feel that we approached and executed the task at the final performance with energy, confidence and obvious enjoyment. We all made the attempt to capture a 1920’s air in our costumes and I feel Jamie’s song introductions added well to the atmosphere and feeling of entertainment. The one aspect of the performance that I feel really frustrated with was when I ‘froze’ at the very beginning of “Someone To Watch Over Me”. Even after weeks of practice I had completely lost the first line of the song and although I continued to vamp through the opening bars I finally had to be fed the first line from Jamie. After this the song went smoothly but the feeling of sheer panic and also of letting the rest of the band down was horrendous. This is the first time this has ever happened to me and I truly hope that it will be the last.
I feel during this process I have been able to develop my communication skills, learn new techniques and build-upon existing ones. I have also had the opportunity to spend time playing with a group of very talented musicians and I we were able to freely exchange ideas and learn from one another. It has also allowed me to identify areas for personal development such as increasing my organisational and time-management skills and realistic goal-setting. In conclusion, I feel that ensemble has provided me with a very worthwhile and positive experience and highlighted many factors to be considered swhen undertaking projects of this nature in the future.
11/10/11
Ensemble performance yesterday. Managed to overcome general malaise with prescription drugs which I think played a part in me corpsing dreadfully during my solo bit. Can’t bare to think of it but got a few compliments for the singing afterwards. I shall reflect on this at a later date.
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