My Best Gigs of the 90's. Back to England and a Change of Direction.

The Nineties were a funny decade for me. We moved back to England (except son Sam), I went back to working with children with emotional and behavioural problems, getting several promotions and ending up as Head Teacher first at a residential school in the New Forest and then back where I started teaching in North Devon. I did go to a few concerts and managed to play some gigs and went to one very good festival, but mainly my professional life took over. This led eventually to a heart attack in 1998 and when I got let out of hospital, I went to live in France again, joining my wife and youngest son who were both living in a small village in SW France. And it was while living there that I went to see one of my all time favourite concerts.

Massive Attack main guys back then.

12. Massive Attack, Toulouse, '98.
To get to this concert it was a hundred mile drive, my first long drive since my heart attack and a sign that I was over it. Over the nineties I got into the rave and dance scenes with the accompanying drugs and I had been visiting son Sam in Bristol and liked the city more and more, particularly the music scene, including triphop, drum'n bass and dub. I knew Massive Attack and loved their dark music. So to get a chance to see them live I wasn't going to miss.
I went by myself, the tickets were not cheap and nobody in the village had heard of the band. And it would seem that the same was generally true because the sports hall the gig was in was far from bursting. But there were enough people there to make a response, and they all obviously loved it. It was one of my fist band gigs where there were few musicians on stage and where sequencers, samplers and drum machines were the order of the day. Also, the idea of different vocalists appearing for different numbers and virtually no guitars. But an incredibly big sound in contrast to the minimalist stage presentation, just people performing in the shadows of mainly dark blue lighting.
I was coming to all this a bit late perhaps but it brightened up my perspective of what could be done on stage and on record (CD).
I was very stoned, no one around to tell me it was bad for my heart, found a quiet corner with great sound and a perfect view and got immersed in the whole experience, loving every minute.
And I got to talk to some of the band after the gig, a relationship that continued off and on when I lived in Bristol over an eleven year period, starting about two weeks after this gig.

And this started a period when I was getting into the range of dance music in a big way. I was seeing DJs a lot, they were in nearly every bar in central Bristol but I still wanted to see bands and one of them was playing not far from Bristol and I had to go see them along with a DJ friend, Sez.

Maxi Jazz and Sister Bliss of Faithless.

13. Faithless, Newport, Wales, '98.
Newport, a rough, steel town with high unemployment, about an hour's drive from Bristol over the toll Severn bridge. I forget the name of the venue but it seemed to be a small old theatre with a large dragon's head to one side of the stage (a dragon is the emblem of Wales) and where one of the bar's was actually underneath the stage.
Faithless, self-described as trip-hop meets techno, were touring their 2nd successful album, Sunday 8pm which contained the mega club hit, God is a DJ. So, their reputation having come before them, even in sleepy Wales, the venue was sold out and heaving both with typical clubbers and heavy rugby playing, unfashionable men. We settled in smoking spliffs and drinking in the wee understage bar until the excitement in the main hall told us the band were coming on stage.
And it was a real band!! Bass, drums, percussion, guitar and 2 sets of keyboards, all being played at a high level of skill and volume. The sound of the rythmn section was a battering ram that made your spine tingle and your feet rock and the overall sound with the synths was trippy-hoppy. And then came the vocals with the excellent Pauline Taylor singing female lead and the charismatic, bare-chested Maxi Jazz, singing-rapping the male equivalent. Sister Bliss on main keyboards is a superb player (and main composer) and the guitarist was a real surprise when he changed from electric rythmn guitar to lead acoustic.
Visually exciting as well as providing music everyone could dance to as well as blowing out your ears and then your mind, Faithless provided a total experience of quality and left me feeling I had seen the future.
(I think I did end up on another planet, having returned to my son Sam's where i was staying, and there was a party in progress. I took some offered coke and then was graphically ill before collapsing immediately after.)

Underworld hard at it.

14.  Underworld, Newport, Wales, '99.
Virtually a year later,  I returned alone to Newport, to a more modern, tailor-made venue to go and see Underworld. I love their music, dance music but also ambient and with lots of clever keyboards and intelligent (not always) lyrics. I hadn't a clue what to expect but found a raver-type audience, drugged up and ready to enjoy the sounds. On stage there were 2 DJ types busying around extended mixing desks and the guitarist-vocalist, the only person in clear view in front of a multi-screen set.
The sound was clear and very loud, particularly the continuous beats and the need to get on the dance floor very insistent. It was the right place to see them, fairly intimate with a good not too crowded dance floor where all communications were with big beaming smiles.
All in all, not as good as Faithless, but a lot better than most of the rock acts I saw in the nineties for their overall sound and the energy and the good feeling the whole experience engendered. I still have them playing regularly on my Mac because a lot of their music is timeless, interesting, foot-tapping and very 21st century.


Coming next, three favourite gigs from the new century, all in Bristol and not a white guy in sight!!

Supporting HAWKWIND on tour, 2006: Part Two, How To Put A Band Together Really Quickly.

So, I got the tour dates from Dave Brock and they weren't far away, and I had started rehearsing with Rob and Latch, drummer and bassist whilst at the same time, writing lyrics for the songs I had in the pipeline. Then, down The Bell, a local pub near the rehearsal place, a hangout for quite a few musicians, including members of Massive Attack, I was faced by a big problem. Rob announced that they both wanted 50 pounds per rehearsal and 100 pounds per gig. Now Dave Brock had already told me that we would only be getting 100 pounds per gig plus food (perhaps). And we would need to pay for hotels most nights plus fuel for my people carrier. There was no way I could afford that and I told them so,,,,100 pounds per gig: I thought it unlikely that even the members of Hawkwind were paid that much. How could I sort out a way to do this tour?

I knew I could programme the songs on my Mac using Garageband and the sequencer in my new Roland Fantom keyboard and in fact I had already done so for most of the songs but I couldn't go on stage alone, I needed at least one other person and preferably a guitarist, and a very good one. I spoke about the problem to my son Sam and he suggested an old French friend of his, Olivier Bony, or Obny as was his 'stage' name. I knew he was an excellent guitarist having seen him play a few times and Sam reckons he'd jump at the chance of touring in the UK and he was right. I phoned up Olivier and told him the score and proposed that I would pay all his expenses if he would come and play with me but there would be no actual pay beyond that: he'd have to do it for the crack, for the experience. I emailed him MP3s of the songs we were to do, instrumental versions and we planned for him to fly up for a week of rehearsals and then the tour, staying at my place till we went on the road.

Kitchen leading to balcony of how house in Montpelier, Bristol

Now in September 2006, we had sold our large Grade 2 listed Georgian town house in Montpelier, Bristol for 600 thousand pounds because we had gotten so far behind with the mortgage and had no regular income high enough to pay it (2000 pounds per month). After paying off all the interest on more than a year's arrears, we got back around 35 grand which we shared in half after using some as the deposit and first month's rent on a 4 bed-roomed house in Clifton, just off Whiteladies Road. We needed it what with Liz's three children, 2 of whom were adults and came and went, all of our furniture, some of which we had to put into storage anyway, and a money-making idea I had come up with: live with your teacher programmes for foreign business people for which I had a few necessary clients in fact I still had a Chinese client called Hugh living with us until the end of October. He worked for CCTV5, the Chinese national television Sports channel and was with us for 3 months to improve his English ready for the Beijing Olympics. He arrived at our front door on the first of August and presented himself by saying he was called Hugh and he was gay. And he certainly was and a lovely person and a good cook of spicy Sezhuan dishes.

Anyhow, I had used most of my share of the money to buy a Citroen people carrier, the Roland Fantom and a good stereo speaker combination. So I was well-equipped on top of my existing Roland XP8. I worked on getting all the songs programmed in the new Roland, everything we needed except the lead guitar parts but, in particular the drum and bass. And I had completed most of the lyrics too. So I thought we were doing well. But then Olivier phoned me with the news he couldn't find his passport or his French ID card, a disaster he thought as he had asked and found out that getting a fresh copy of either would take at least a month which we didn't have. But my character means I don't just give up in such situations and so I wrote to the Mayor of Avignon, special delivery, explaining the situation and he, bless the man, got Olivier a copy of his French ID (sufficient for flying into the UK from France) within less than a week.

Lastwind on stage.

By this time, all the cheap flights to Bristol were full but I managed to get a good cheap EasyJet flight from Marseille to Luton, a fairly long drive from Bristol but a good place to drop him off after our last concert in Derby. We still had 3 days rehearsal time when he arrived so I booked a room on the Gloucester Road and now there was just one remaining problem; he would need an amplifier combo and he told me the specs of a couple he thought suitable so I just had to find somewhere which could rent us such an item.
Back to the Bell Inn to try and get hold of another guy I knew, Bob. who dealt in good quality secondhand gear when he wasn't incapable whilst recovering from yet another drug-fuelled, multi-day binge. He had had a long and checkered career in the music biz, including being Depeche Mode's sound engineer until one of his binges led to an inconveniently-timed spell in a Caribbean prison. I've spent some very agreeable and funny evenings with him over the years but also was very aware that he was a must to avoid when on a binge: he is a huge bear of a man with whiteman dreadlocks who doesn't flinch when things get heavy. Anyhow, I found him in the Bell and he told me he had sold all his stock to a guy who had taken over his shop near Trinity Road Police Station, a fortress in a very bad part of town, where the infamous Old Market met the equally dodgy Stapleton Road. Bob gave me the phone number and a personalised introduction to the strange guy who ran this store whilst looking like a retired Motorhead roadie. He quickly disappeared up some narrow steps when I told him what I was after and passed me down the amp Olivier most prized. It looked good, all painted white, we agreed on one hundred pound for the hire and I came away very satisfied.
Olivier arrived, looking good and very motivated. And after the drive home, we spent the evening catching up, including going for a beer with Hugh and eating a lovely meal with the whole family. We were ready to start rehearsing the 7 songs that were to make up our 40 minute set. And the first gig was in 4 days time in Northampton.

Our tour poster designed by my son Sam. DoseProd

TO BE CONTINUED. Next post.....Under-rehearsed Beginners.