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[nomdy-plume]

… now, where was I..?

Oh yes! I was trying to maintain a blog, wasn’t I!

So, since I last managed to excrete my thoughts into here a lot has happened - my darling girlfriend, the reason I moved out here to Texas, has since done me the honour of becoming my wife, so it looks like I am REALLY good and stuck out here in Texas…!

I’ve started taking guitar students, something I haven’t done in a while but which I am really enjoying - and which (one suspects) will become the focus for much of my musings on here.

I have recorded some tracks on GarageBand in the past year, too. One turned out to be quite a whimsical, shreddy kind of sketch: the other was more of an exercise in programming drums and bass loops - not to be confused with programming drum n’ bass loops, which I also hope to get around to doing.

The wife is insisting that I should try and find representation here in Austin, a management agency or some such to get me out playing live again… I guess that would be nice but for now I’ll be concentrating on my students. That, and learning all my favourite metal guitar solo’s! I’m enjoying Marty Friedman’s work but feel that the time is now right to look at the oeuvre of one Dimebag Darrell - whose works I have only scratched the surface of thus far.

Anyway, dear reader, I’ll keep you posted.

Fondles,

NdP.

[nomdy-plume]

A Lucky Escape!

Well shiver me timbers but a lot has happened since I last wrote, dear reader!

Turns out, I was one of the last folk that was allowed off my last ship before it was quarantined in Sydney with all the COVID19 craziness... yep, I disembarked the Ruby Princess about a week before it hit the headlines!

I had a very long, 23hr journey back to the UK via Singapore (Changi is my favourite airport, love that place), wondering why everyone was coughing and spluttering and wearing masks... spent two weeks at home fearing that I would become a ‘super-spreader’...

The one-off reunion show was a smash hit, a sell-out, which was an amazing reminder of all the things you forget when you’re in a full time covers band. We managed to squeeze in a rehearsal beforehand so we actually had quite a tight vibe for the gig... I had to drive a 300mile round trip for the rehearsal, but I wasn’t prepared to play the show without one!

So, after a busy 2 weeks back home, catching up with family, playing packed shows and enjoying not being on a massive cruise ship, I flew out to Texas to spend some time with my girlfriend.

Then Covid-mania struck, and now I think I’m stuck here! All flights across the pond are one-way and here I am, trying to figure out what the hell I am to do... still, the food is great and the weather is very pleasant!

Thank goodness I had the sense to bring a guitar with me... have published a couple of instructional guitar videos on YouTube (I should do some more, really) and now - necessity being the Frank Zappa of all inventions - I’ll finally be getting around to putting together some sort of home recording studio get-up.

Have also, in these lockdown days, been spending A LOT of time practising - as any good musician should. I found a bunch of crazy, 80s hair metal, shredder instructional vids on YouTube which I’ve been working my way through. Richie Kotzen is a bad, bad mofo! I really like his music, he’s got a great voice - but he’s also the most pointlessly, ridiculously fatuous prestydigitationer imaginable in his ‘Rock Chops’ vid. Have had TONS of fun with it! ZERO musicality: MAXIMUM music store, show-off posing benefit!

So, yes - am stuck in much the same lockdown cabin-fever craziness as everyone else. Might write an EP.

Stay safe people...!

NdP x

[nomdy-plume]

Last cruise

So, dear reader, here I am on day 3 of our final 2-week cruise out of Sydney – currently under full sail towards Fiji and our last chances to get horribly drunk and sunburnt on beautiful, white sand beaches before heading back home to the UK in the middle of winter.

What a contract it has been – New Zealand was even more magical than we had been expecting, Australia was majestic (and such a privilege to have seen it before it burns to the ground) and all other sundry places (Tahiti, Samoa, New Caledonia) were as beautiful as could be imagined.

The ship currently appears to be falling apart around our ears, not helped by a week’s worth of VERY rough seas a while back when the crew recreation room was nearly shaken apart in the 25ft swells… a swell is a nautical term for waves going up and down, even on a ship as big as ours (it’s nearly 300 metres long) when you are constantly going up 25ft before letting gravity take it’s natural course, it’s a little hard not to feel it.  Feels like a good time to leave, anyway.

Our time on board wasn’t without its challenges: I tried to book my girlfriend on as a guest for the New Year’s cruise, had been assured that it was a mere formality and looked forward to celebrating both our birthdays together. Her birthday was a major milestone, so we’d asked friends and family to donate towards funding her ‘dream holiday’ to celebrate, only to be told with only a week’s notice that – because of some stupid reason which I’ll not bore you with – the request was denied. We managed to get her flights refunded but it was still pretty sucky.

Musically, well everything has been pretty good, too.  The theme sets we play (Beatles night, ABBA, Country, Rock and Roll – the usual stuff) have all gone down really well – the Aussies LOVE them a bit of ABBA! And I only sing one of those tunes (Does Your Mother Know?) so it’s a pretty easy night for me.

The open deck shows – the big evening parties we throw once a cruise to the whole ship – have been excellent, the New Year’s Eve night was EPIC with around 2500 folk up there dancing along.  The last one we played was notable, too: firstly, it should have been cancelled because the weather was clearly terrible.  But they’d advertised quite heavily as a trademark theme show.  We turned up (which was more than could be said for most of the passengers…) and started it in gale conditions, freezing our asses off.  Not only did every technical problem happen that could have happened but a few also happened which couldn’t have happened.

In soundcheck, our drummer asked to have less of the backing tracks in his ear-mix, he only needed the click track.  He was told that the click and the backing tracks were on the same track, and couldn’t be separated or mixed down. Oh well, he’d just have to suffer them both.

As we started the show, he quickly became animated and started waving frantically at the sound crew. The click track was glitchy, stuttering along in random bursts and not following the backing tracks, confusing the hell out of him – and because he was leading the band, everyone else.  Now, given that they were on the same track, how the hell could THAT happen? One by one, we eventually gave the music up as a bad idea and just let the backing tracks play on their own.

The wind blew over mic stands, half the drum kit and it took three guys clinging on to the gazebo over the sound desk to stop it from flying off over the Tasman sea.  The dancers nearly caught hypothermia in their skimpy outfits, the trombonist saw his sheet music go flying everywhere and – despite wearing three layers of clothing and a woolly hat, my fingers froze up during the last song so I had to stop playing.

DESPITE all of this, the crowd (eventually maybe a couple of hundred people showed up) LOVED it, danced like crazy and gave a tonne of positive feedback on guest comments.  So, normally if it feels like a disaster, looks like a disaster and sounds like a disaster then it can be classified as such. In this instance, because the crowd enjoyed it so much it was actually a runaway success. Go figure! It will remain both a highlight and a lowlight of my career, and is probably the strongest ‘war story’ I’ll take from my time on ships.

What I am looking forward to when I get back home is to play a re-union gig with my old originals act back in my hometown. After 4 months of playing the same 250 cover songs round and round (and round and over and over again…), it will be very nice indeed to blow the dust off the rock tunes that we used to tour around the UK.  The past couple of years we’ve only done one show a year at a micro festival on the south coast, partly as a means to keep in touch and catch up now that life has taken us off in different routes. But they went so well that our old promoter has booked us a night in a decent venue and is marketing it as a ‘one-off reunion’.

We had some great times back in the day: got ‘discovered’ by the tour manager for the Black Eyed Peas, played a bunch of festivals and recorded with some legends of the industry. In a lot of rock stars’ autobiographies they talk about the best times being when they were rattling around in the back of a transit van playing shows before they got ‘big’.  Well, the stadium gigs and personal jumbo jets never happened for us (thankfully, as it turns out) but we had all that good stuff in our ex-Royal Mail transit van and I wouldn’t swap those memories for all the world.

Still feels a bit weird seeing the adverts for the ‘re-union’ show though – but as an excuse to catch up for a rehearsal, a show and a few beers in and around that with the other lads, it’s going to be great!

So, here’s hoping for a nice, uneventful, hot and sunny last 12 days on the floating containment unit before I have to go through the ordeal of a 25hr flight itinerary back to the UK lugging 50kilos of my stuff with me. And onto the next adventure!

Cheers!

[nomdy-plume]

Do you come from a land down under?

Hi folks – me again, having let enough time pass for sufficient stuff to have happened to make it worth a blog post.

You find me sailing somewhere around New Zealand’s north island, trying to fend off the latest bug which seems to have descended upon me. Had a wonderful day yesterday in Auckland meeting up with some friends that I used to work with in London.  It’s the ‘shippy’s’ dream to know someone who lives near the port who is willing to show you around, a fine day was had eating some good food and touring the local spots.

The band keep ploughing onwards, too: we had a moment a few weeks back when the singer thought she might have a touch of the old laryngitis… which is basically one of the worst things that a singer can get! We were all pretty concerned for a while, the management were super supportive and let us play some sets as instrumentals rather than burn myself and the band leader – who also sings a couple – out through over work.

I was also extra-concerned because I’d booked my girlfriend tickets to come and spend her birthday (it’s a big one, too! But t’would be churlish to reveal a lady’s age…) cruising with us in January. So, being visited by the spectre of the likelihood of being sent home early because our singer was out of action filled me with a little worry…

As it turned out, once the singer had seen a Dr. in Sydney who confirmed that she was fine and just needed some rest – as well as to be aware that the medical advice available onboard the ship ‘might’ not be of the highest calibre… - it wasn’t long before we were back in business.

.. right up until the point where our bassist’s shoulder had a major mechanical failure. Suspected nerve damage has seen him signed off for the last two days… poor guy is clearly in a tremendous amount of pain… and I am back to worrying about whether I’ll still be onboard the ship by the time my lovely better half flies out… So far our keys player has been a total legend in playing bass parts with his left hand but it remains to be seen what will happen should the bassist get sent home early…

We think that the company will let us finish the contract, limping along without a bassist, as long as we can still provide the party atmosphere at shows… so far the crowds have still been pretty good, despite it sounding a little strange without an actual bass… our keys guy has some decent synthesised bass patches and has – mostly – been able to remember/learn the bass lines for our songs…

But once again, we’re left a little short of being in an ideal position. Maybe a new bassist will get flown out to us? Maybe our guy will perform a miraculous recovery? Maybe we’ll all be forced to walk the plank somewhere outside of Tasmania…

Whatever happens, we’re all at sea.

x

[nomdy-plume]

Back on board

Dear reader,

as a perfect example of the ridiculous highs and crushing lows of my life as a musician, since my last post - where I left you dangling over the cliff edge of whether or not I would be able to keep the wolves from my door - you find me writing this from a cruise ship in Hawaii, soon to be sailing around Australia and New Zealand for four months.

It was about two months ago that, whilst pondering life on the streets, that I received an email from my management asking me if I was available. HELL YES I WAS AVAILABLE!!!! My girlfriend wasn’t best pleased to lose me to the oceans for another extended stint at sea, but my bank manager most definitely was.

So, in the glorious English summer sunshine, I made my way to the management’s place where I was to meet the rest of the band and plough through some rehearsals.  The management had a new dog - a big, friendly American bull terrier who proceeded to drop his head straight into my lap as soon as I sat down. Good boye!

The band were almost as friendly, I’d worked with the bassist before and the drummer and singer were - almost unbelievably - not only very talented but lovely people too.  I genuinely spent the initial three days pinching myself in disbelief at my good fortune.

Anyone who has played ‘contract roulette’ will tell you that the chances of everyone being nice, professional and able to all get along in a new band are astronomical - and yet, here we are. Seeing as I only had around five-ten new songs to learn and bed in, rehearsals went swimmingly.  I even had some new songs to sing, which gave me more of a challenge and kept me from going insane at the thought of having to sing the same 60-odd songs over and over (and over) again.

It wasn’t until I was standing with my luggage in the cruise terminal in Los Angeles that I allowed myself to believe that it might ACTUALLY, really, really be happening - such was my fear of jinxing any of it. After a long day of flights from the UK (via Amsterdam), my girlfriend (who had flown up from Texas to spend the overnight with me before she lost me to the waves until next year) and I spent a wonderful - if slightly jet-lagged - afternoon at the hotel at my employer’s expense, had a wander around in the evening and enjoyed an amazing breakfast in the morning at a diner in San Pedro. After a typically sad and emotional farewell at the port, I dragged, hauled and pushed all my things up the gangway, barely believing my good fortune.

What a beautiful ship! Even my cabin (cruise ships, in my experience, have a VERY varied standard of living arrangements for entertainment staff...) was super clean, relatively spacious and entirely acceptable. The venues we play in are all very decent, too - even the poolside stage has a good amount of shade, which we will definitely need over the next four, hot and very sunny months.

It hasn’t all been perfect, though: due to a visa-based administrative discrepancy, we aren’t able to get off the ship in Hawaii... but it certainly looks beautiful from the ship.  We take solace that cruise ships are wonderful places to be when all the passengers are ashore; the gym has been empty, for instance, and queues for food are non-existant.

So, dear reader, what was potentially a very difficult situation was spun around in double-short time.  Once again, I get to avoid the cold, dark awfulness of British winter and instead get paid to travel around an incredible part of the world (Fiji! I get to go to Fiji! *offers silent prayer of gratitude*) whilst doing what I love most.

Don’t tell my employers, but I would TOTALLY do this for free.  As long as board, food, travel and beer were supplied, it would still be my dream. But, those guitar strings don’t pay for themselves...

Also super-amazing is being in a closer time zone to Japan so I can watch the rugby world cup matches at a reasonable hour.  Back in the UK, it would involve getting up at 5am... very pleased to see Wales bossing things in their group, look forward to seeing how things unfold in what seems to be one of the greatest tournaments so far.  With the Japanese team taking big scalps left right and centre, the atmosphere in Japan looks electric!

As a band, we don’t get any days off - which, over four months, can be a little taxing - but for instance: tonight we play two 45 min shows.  We’re doing a reggae set at poolside around 8pm, followed by an upbeat party set at 9.15pm.  Finished, showered, fed and in the bar afterwards by 10.30pm.

WHAT. A. LIFE.

Love, NdP x

[nomdy-plume]

Have you seen ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’?

It’s a good job I don’t post a new blog every week – I’d have nothing to talk about.  

Whereas, leaving it a few months between updates, I have LOTS to cover. You ready? Let’s begin:

Since returning from Texas, I have completed a month’s contract onboard another ferry, after my management were kind enough to offer me a way out of short-term pecuniary disenfranchisement. It was the sister-ship of the one that I normally find myself on and I’m pleased to say that it was the better of the two: the indoor smoking room (I no longer smoke) was a [much larger and better equipped] gym and the gym room was a very plush TV room with a full satellite package.

Given the cricket world cup was taking place during my contract, it was wonderful to be the only person on the ship who wasn’t busy working during the day. I had the whole TV room to myself (about 25 yards from the mess, food, drink, etc.) to indulge in what was an amazing tournament.

On my last two contracts I was playing in the main theatre (in the belly of the ship) with a party band but for a month I was providing troubadour, solo, action upstairs in the Sky lounge – my first contract as a soloist.  After an initial knee-jerk reaction to accepting the contract of downloading a ton of backing tracks, so I could provide a range of musical options, I realised pretty quickly that this was completely  unnecessary.

Performing 4x 30min sets a night: I started out by planning 3 days’ worth of unique sets, which I figured I could adjust and tinker with until I was happy with how they all worked out. Slow, mellow ones to start with before whipping the crowd into a frenzy with sing-a-long classics later on in the night. I think I had about 150 songs in my solo repertoire to choose from and it’s basically about 7 or 8 songs a set (depending on how long I drag them out for).

It was the usual mix of songs that I know I can play and sing – which work in a solo setting – and a desperate grab for as many other suitable songs which I could learn or which I really wanted to try out acoustically.

However, pretty early in the contract, one of the ladies on security in the port was kind enough to pass on her head cold to me. My throat was soon swollen enough for me to ask my Entertainments Manager (EM) if it would be OK if I just played some instrumental stuff until my voice was better.  His reaction – reading between the lines, and the indifferent shrug – told me that he couldn’t care less what I did as long as I was up there making some form of noise for my allotted times.

Now, this meant that the bar staff / bar manager in my venue must have been happy with what they had heard of me so far: they are always the ones to complain if something isn’t working or going to plan.  This pleased me: the bar staff have to listen to the solo act over and over and over again, every night for weeks on end, so whereas the passengers might only hear one or two performances, the staff will hear every single one.  

They become very sensitive to how good/bad people are in both their playing and their selection of material – normally the lack of it.  150 songs might seem a lot, but that’s only 5 days worth before you repeat yourself IF you stick to playing every song.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I quickly got the 30 min sets down to 3 or 4 songs – only two of which I might sing on. I needed to come up with a few more jazz instrumentals to bluff my way through as the staff were hearing Autumn Leaves and Blue Bossa every night, and I don’t want to drive them too mad…

It was a good exercise in needing to be creative with a looper pedal as well as figuring out which of my repertoire I could drag out for around ten mins with solos before and after each verse/chorus…

It meant that I could reduce the songs on which I did sing down to a select, polished group.  It was a great relief to know that I could just throw down a loop and meander whimsically around some melodic lines for the duration of the sets. Audience were happy, bar staff were happy – I was over the moon!

The audiences were a mixed bag.  Most were very receptive: in the warm summer evenings, the top lounge where I played was the place to be. Plus it is right next to the open smoking decks – so there have been some good numbers of bodies in, most of the time.  They don’t seem to mind me in the corner with a looper pedal just noodling away and I’ve been able to play all the requests thrown my way so far. The German passengers seem extra friendly and receptive – apparently they LOVE a bit of Dire Straits, which suits me right down to the ground because so do I.

As per most contracts, there were times when a small, appreciative crowd were loving everything I was playing – just as there were times when a large, unappreciative crowd couldn’t have cared less what I was doing.  In my final week, I was determined to give it everything I had in those final shows – I poured my heart and soul into everything I did.  And no-one noticed, cared or gave a hoot.

Such is life!

Some nights I sucked, didn’t want to be there… some nights I was on fire, didn’t want it to end… I had a ton of fun, even if it didn’t feel like it all the time. I also got to head into Amsterdam a couple of times which was wonderful, it’s possibly my favourite European city and I’ve spent so many hours wandering around the canals and streets.

There’s a breakfast café very near the station which always – ALWAYS! – has a queue of about 10-15 people waiting to get in.  It’s called Omelegg and I’ve always wanted to know what the food is like in there… all the online reviews say it’s incredible… my lifetime quest to find out for myself continueth…

The party band who were onboard were a nice bunch. They were in the lamentable – but not uncommon – position of joining the ship with a guitarist who was young, naïve and completely unprepared for the contract. However, he was a nice, well-meaning guy and the others didn’t seem to be willing to cuss him out: they were kind of hand-holding him through the contract. Bless.

Bands are responsible for making sure they know what they are doing, are rehearsed, etc. and apparently this kid had known for a year that he was doing it.  Sounds like his reasoning was as follows (taken from ad verbatim quotes from the band):

·         I’m the best guitarist at my university

·         I can play anything and I can sing a bit

·         I should be able to figure out / jam along to whatever the band play

I was torn: between admiring the sheer, bare-faced audacity of naïve youth and gobbling popcorn at the eye-widening, car-crash drama of it all. I managed to catch a few of their songs – when our set-times overlapped a little – and it was, indeed, painful to witness.

I wish I could say that I hadn’t been there before, in his shoes (albeit under slightly different circumstances), but I had.  All I can say is that if you survive a baptism of fire like that and STILL want to pursue it as a career, you’ve already displayed enough courage and determination/perseverance to almost guarantee some level of success. It is being right at the bottom of a very steep, painful learning curve.

I also loved my Ibanez jazzy hollow-body guitar on this contract, too.  I bought it in Hong Kong a few years back (the Tom Lee store there is incredible: an Aladdin’s cave of guitar goodness) and hadn’t really touched it since.  I wasn’t sure if the contract would stipulate ‘acoustic-only’ – but that was me being overly cautious.  Not only does it sound great – that oaky, woody, jazzy sound you’d expect from that style of guitar – but it plays so much more easily than anything else I own.

And, because you guys are always most interested in the tragic, nerve-wracking, up-and-down drama of my life as a musician, I’ll fill you in on current events.

I’d been lining up a contract for later in the year, back onboard the last cruise ship where we did the acoustic duo gig.  This time as the party band, which – although fraught with its own logistical challenges – was at least a contract on the table.  Indeed, I had digitally signed and returned it and was relieved to have another 5 months of work booked in to keep my head afloat.

However, the delightful and immensely-talented LT had previously – and both I and the drummer were loosely aware of this – auditioned for a cruise line which paid nearly twice the money for not quite half the work, but certainly a much more agreeable working environment.

So, it was with a sense of dread and doom that we read her message saying that she had been offered a contract with this other cruise line and we weren’t going to be able to tag along. We weren’t going to do the contract without her and we all knew that she was destined for greater things than earning minimum wage with no days off for five months.

So, here I am under fairly intense financial pressures and no work on the horizon.  It’s all very Inside Llewyn Davis, which pleases and disgusts me in equal measures.  On the plus side, in my attempts to get some sort of a side-gig going, I’ve done some work as an extra on a major Netflix production which was being filmed in Wales. It’ll be out later this year, I’m hoping to get some screen time – it’ll be something to laugh about with my family.

So yeah, there’s the update. I may leave it as long again to allow enough to occur to make it a riveting read… but then I don’t have much on at the moment and may end up publishing frequently as a means to pass the time…

*salutes*

[nomdy-plume]

Messin’ in Texas

Taking some well-earned rest at the moment, staying with my girlfriend in Austin, Texas: self-proclaimed ‘live music capital of the world!’ Well, that may be true but what I am mostly here for is a month’s break away from music (kinda) and lots of sunbathing, eating of the delicious food found round these parts and – naturellement – a little smoochie-smoochie, hootchie-cootchin’ with my lady.

Having managed to actually enjoy the last few weeks of the previous contract (can you imagine! How hard could it be to foster a happy environment amongst the entertainment team?!?!), avoided doing any permanent damage to hands, fingers, voices or mental health and – importantly – not been fired for any ‘Charlie Sheen Cruise’ hilarity, we made it back to the UK safely and had two weeks of putting together a new promo film and re-acquainting ourselves with various family members.

Had two days recording the music for the promo at LT’s place in north London; was pretty efficient, seven or eight songs (only a short burst from each, edited together into one, slick showreel) and a tonne of fun messing around with it. We wanted a show-offy guitar solo to include in there so I did a few takes of the most over-the-top, mindless noodly-shred I could muster.  

“That’s amazing… try another take but this time do something different with the ending… unbelievable, just loving it… that’s crazy! Wow… I really like the ending from the last take, might splice that onto the end of the first take…”

“Great! Thanks! So, we’re going to use that on the promo?”

“No! Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t use any of this… It’s way too much! This is just for personal entertainment value. No, you’ll have to do something way more restrained for the actual promo…”

What larks. Helps that drummer is a production genius – you know, one of those borderline, idiot-savant, naturals who could make a dog farting in a biscuit tin sound like Sunday service at Winchester cathedral. So – with only a very bare, hardly-worth-mentioning, amount of pro-toolings to square off some of my vocal notes (just gently nudging them into place at the important bits…) we were done with the audio track and we enjoyed a really good curry while we were at it.

Drummer likes hot curries – LT and meself are complete wussies. Tried some of his vindaloo (“..it’s only a nice, flavoursome vindaloo, it’s not a hot one…”), spent next hour trying to man up and not display weakness to the group. Good times.

Afterwards had a few days back with the family: enjoyed some beautiful dog-walking up and down the valley with my youngest niece and managed to get some domestic situations addressed. Was pretty chill – was nice running errands, discovered an amazing tailor in town (in whose hands I hope to be placing considerable sums of monies in exchange for some outfits!) – but interrupted by need to travel right to the very north of the country to meet the drummer for a bit of video recording.

What might easily have been quite a stressful and disappointing exercise turned out to be super-sweet (a sign I am taking as a good portent of things to come with this new band). Met the bassist which the drummer has vouched for: seems a great, positive guy as well as being a competent musician. Found a music venue 5 mins up the road from him with a stage and some lights and an afternoon for us to set up a shoot and prance around a bit, miming to the audio track recorded the previous week.

With the help of one of his mates, the drummer directed proceedings with LT having creative say and myself and bassist to lug equipment in or out of the way. Historically, these shoots can be annoying, imagine miming/apeing/smiling/dancing your way through the same 7 minute piece of music somewhere between 20-50 times.  It can be wearing, especially if your budget doesn’t exist past what you currently happen to have on you in your pocket at the time.

But, we got a good, vibey lighting on the stage and the drummer once again displayed what can only be described as a ‘knack’ for smashing out these things. All the angles were taken and we even got to wrap the shoot a couple of hours early. LT and I had long drives back home so it was nice to get a headstart and beat rush hour.

Did manage to get a speeding ticket on the way back home though: oh well… there was a part of the motorway which had been reduced to 40mph and I, spotting the national speed limit sign ahead, had been a little too hasty to accelerate and hadn’t seen the camera.  Would not be proud of speeding in a built up area but as this was on the motorway…

So, a few more days chilling with family before getting through the trauma of the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. Not – as you could understand – a big, happy time for us… my mum did a lot of crying… my sister and I kept each other’s spirits up… was nice to have other family members nearby, sad to see them under such circumstance but there will be other, happier, times to come.

Then I was off on a train to get to the hotel by the airport ahead of my flight to Austin! A long-awaited re-union with my lady (9 months since I had waved her off at Dublin airport the previous summer…) and some much-deserved ‘r n’ blinkin’, mummy-huggin’ r’!

So long, dark storminess of the UK: hello 90 degrees and sunshine! See ya later, land of Boots Meal Deals and M&S sushi portions, what’s up! home of unbelievable, tasty nomness everywhere you look!

Just a little down the track from Gatwick airport, I was messaging the lovely lady and checking my itinerary when I spotted a minor flaw in procedings: although it was great to be just outside Gatwick airport, I noted from my boarding details that I would actually be required a little nearer to Heathrow airport if I was to have any chance of boarding.

BUGGER.

It literally wouldn’t have been an authentic travelling experience between my good lady and myself if there hadn’t been at least one massive cock up.

“Honey! That’s great! Now I’M not the last person to make a stupid mistake! How thoughtful of you! xxx”

I knew she’d see the funny side. Oh well, I could catch a coach to Heathrow in the morning and still be there in plenty of time for a proper breakfast. So, that’s what I did.

Had the dream transatlantic flight experience, too: the whole row to myself, there was hardly anybody on board. 10hrs spent lounging in comparative comfort, saw three films I really wanted to see (Green Book: Vice and Whiplash), did a little napping, did a little eating and then landed slap bang in the middle of Texas!

It’s been amazing so far: I will have to head home in a month or so to go and earn some more money to fund this international lifestyle, so I have to enjoy every minute. The food is unbelievable… we always used to joke in the UK about how fat Americans are but quite frankly the only fat people I’ve seen here are Brits who can’t believe how good all the food is here. I’m one of them!

Or I would be if it weren’t for the fact that I cycle 50 miles a week with the missus up and down the stunning Colorado river to downtown and back, as well as having a pretty tidy gym in the apartment complex.  Have also been doing a lot of yoga because my better half likes it too and it’s the best thing for your body by far.

Austin has amazing electric bikes and scooters, cheap to hire and found all over the city, so getting about has never been more fun. In the glorious weather we have right now, cruising the cycle paths along the river has been a truly blessed experience. Plus, you know, I’m slowly recovering my dignity after consuming a heroic amount of custard on the last ship.

Just love it here - the quality of life is off the charts. America is a strange, massive, complicated place but Austin is, as the people are rightly proud of, a weird blue dot in the middle of the sea of Texas red. And long may it stay so!

I’ve been keeping an eye on emails and messages: sounds like the promo vid has been doing the business in terms of eyeing up a next contract. Need to get back (eventually… boo!), sort out some rehearsals, buy some matching outfits and then on to the next nautical adventure!

[nomdy-plume]

Living in a material world

Despite carefully managing how much we push ourselves over the course of this contract, we still care about our performances. The question of what material we use is constantly evolving. Each (weekly) cruise brings new faces with different tastes, requirements and requests: we had a situation last week where we had bid our thank-you's and goodnights but were called for an encore.

One guest asked LT for a slow, smoochy number ("Easy" by the Commodores, to be exact) while another one leant in to me and slurred "play shumthing fasht that we can dansh to!! *hic*" You can't please everyone.

LT informs me that I need more upbeat, uptempo songs - I have responded today by learning James Taylor's 'Fire and Rain' and by figuring out how to insert a verse and bridge from The Eagles' 'Desperado' into the instrumental section in 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'. Make of that what you will...

I will probably just add a few Beatles' tunes to fill out the rep - and I'm enjoying singing simple rock and roll tunes ('Dream Lover' 'That'll be the Day') as the average cruiser hasn't heard any new music since the 90's... In our later sets - usually starting around midnight - when it's quiet, I get to indulge my own tastes, when there are only two or three bodies hiding in the shadowy far reaches of the room. I'll leave Chris Cornell, Layne Staley and Scott Weiland for those special nights.

I definitely need to work in some more jazz instrumentals, too. LT and I are getting sick of Autumn Leaves and Blue Bossa... As much fun as they are to loop and noodle aimlessly over, I ran out of new ideas a few weeks ago.

However, seeing as they can each easily eat up ten mins, I'm not above playing them both six times a week. I'm going to throw in Santana's Flor D'Luna this week, just need to count some bars in the C-section before looping away.

Had another wonderful/horrible moment last night, after another traumatic schedule release (5 sets tonight). We were due to finish at midnight - our earliest finish this year - but a packed room were clapping and cheering our efforts and we caved in to an extra 15 mins of encores.

Those beautiful, wonderful, ignorant, thoughtless paying customer gits.

[nomdy-plume]

January blues

So, we’re almost halfway through the contract here in the Canaries and we managed to successfully make our way through Christmas and the new year without stabbing anyone through the stress of it all.

We have found a peace - of sorts - with the fact that on this ship it is expected that acts perform four times a day, with no days off, for the entirety of their contract. I’ve never experienced this on any of the many ships I’ve worked on before and am in agreement with all of my friends and colleagues in that it is quite inhuman. However, we are cutting our cloth to suit and are barely making any effort at all in the first few sets in order to preserve our voices and our sanity.

We can only imagine how bad the acts are who usually fill the spots if they can keep up for 6 months straight with an average of three hours performing every day. We’re told that the agency are having trouble filling the rota - no shit!

Every other ship I’ve worked has had the decency to accept that, even if they give you a day off every ten days or so, for the sake of everyone’s sanity a balanced schedule is a must. Some days you’ll do five sets, others you’ll do four, usually you’ll do three and sometimes you’ll do two. That’s on every ship I’ve worked bar this one (but not ferries, which are a different beast altogether).

I had two days off just before Christmas when my left hand broke down - I can now only play my acoustic guitar on rare occasions, I stick with my electric which doesn’t sound as rich and full but is 3x easier on my hands - and still the management maintain that we stick to the schedule...

Speaking of the agency, they prove themselves time and time again to be the most incompetent bunch of bollock-jugglers imaginable. From a myriad of red flags before we had even joined the ship, they’ve really lowered the bar for mis-management of acts and artists during our time on board. We had a senior member of their team join us over Christmas and openly apologise to us for their ineptitude.

In their finite wisdom, they ordered that all musicians on the ship should perform a Christmas concert based around ‘Christmas No.1s’ and expected us to turn around choral interpretations of various schmaltzy numbers (as well as a soul-crushing rendition of the Bob the Builder theme) in under a week when half the acts (Filipino’s) didn’t know or understand the songs, with no bass players (another unfathomable cock-up of the agency’s making) and no keyboard player to even try and make up for the lack of a bassist.

The senior figure basically admitted that it was just one of his colleagues in the office who had had a ‘bright’ idea but hadn’t really given it any thought beyond rolling it out as a demand.

Thankfully, we had a batch of replacement musicians come in as contracts expired and the new solo pianist was an expert conductor and motivator and we managed to put on some decent performances, the miserable crowd reactions to which bore witness to how poorly chosen the material was. Still, we did our job.

The ever-wonderful LT refused to let anything spoil her Christmas though, not the forced wearing of Santa hats (which made you sweat profusely under the lights on stage and were in terrible state after a week), not the constant barrage of cheesy songs over the BGM (background music), not anything. When my hand broke and we wondered if I’d permanently crocked myself she cheerfully agreed to sing along to backing tracks (which she hates) for a few days.

People continue to fall in love with her singing: we’ve received countless positive guest feedback reports, drinks, offers of work back in the UK and more comparisons with other artists than any other act I’ve been in. It’s now a running joke that all I get are sympathy ‘.. and he’s not bad either..’ remarks when they spot me waiting patiently behind her as she laps up the effusions from guests. She richly deserves the plaudits, not only for her talent but also because she’s genuinely lovely and puts up with me being grumpy.

New Years fireworks in Madeira nearly made up for all the stress: the management tried to ask us to play through midnight (our assistant cruise director helpfully suggested that we ‘stop for midnight, then carry on afterwards...’) and LT essentially told them where they could stick that idea and we wound up on the open deck witnessing the largest, most spectacular display imaginable. Certainly a night to remember, and a highlight of my career at sea so far.

So here we are in 2019, determined to make it through to the end of the contract and to enjoy ourselves along the way. The weather here in the Canaries remains mostly warm and sunny, the weather back home seems awful. That’ll do me for now.

[nomdy-plume]

Evolutionary pains

Well, dear reader, the contract has continued much as could be expected so far: I’m currently medically signed off from playing guitar for a few days after being left temporarily crippled. Six weeks of performing four hours a day - every day - on an acoustic guitar proved to be a bridge (aha!) too far for me. Despite really enjoying accompanying the ever-wonderful LT and providing magical moments of musical memories for our passengers, it’s just not worth endangering my hand and future career prospects.

LT’s parents cruised with us a few weeks ago, wonderful people who were rightly proud of their daughter’s talents and I’m pleased to say we got them welled-up with emotion with a few well-chosen family favourites (Queen’s Love of my Life came out far better than it should have done considering I had an afternoon to figure something out). LT also got the nearest to a standing ovation that I’ve seen in a cruise ship wine bar for her rendition of Never Enough from the Greatest Showman, leaving her folks practically popping with pride.

LT’s dad used to play a bit of guitar, he joined the ever-growing queue of people to comment on how absurd it is for me to perform a minimum of 4 sets a day on an acoustic guitar, every day for 4 months. LT was the sole singer on her last contract and even though they had a lighter schedule, only two or three sets some days, she struggled through laryngitis until the company had to fly her out to see a specialist.

We’re beginning to suspect that the company are either willfully negligent or criminally ignorant of how to manage artists. I mooted the opinion that most of the acts hired are of such poor quality that they could easily strum and caterwaul three chord approximations for months on end. We’ve had to lower our standards to meet our employers halfway - we downloaded some backing tracks that we are just going to sing over until we can figure out whether I could pick up a guitar again.

My experiences with backing tracks has been chequered - costing me a job at one point - so it was with a large degree of spite that I chose a handful to sing along to last night. As weird as it was to perform without a guitar, it actually went quite well and was well received so it looks like we’ll remain in gainful employment for a while longer...

It is - as you may gather - the Christmas cruise: my first time onboard for the holidays and so far so worse. The mandatory wearing of Christmas hats by entertainment staff has proven to be a lousy idea, badly implemented by the management. Performing under lights wearing a stupid red Santa hat has caused more stage blindness through sweating amongst the musicians than has been seen before outside of summer season in the tropics. The cruise director and assistant cruise director have flouted the rule, the main party band just outright refused and so LT and I split the difference and bought Alice-band antlers instead. One old lady said we looked more like devils than reindeer, which was probably about right.

So, with my left hand being like a recuperating claw, another painful steroid injection from the medical bay looming, our stage show devolving into Butlins-esque backing track mediocrity, Christmas bereft of family, alcohol and culinary over-indulgence lurching towards us, I cling tightly to the real reason that we celebrate Christmas at this time of year. That our mediaeval overlords needed something to conjoin pagan winter festivals with something Christian to try and help us all get along.

Ain’t no way baby Jesus was born at the tail end of December.

[nomdy-plume]

Bodybuilding for hands

Coming to the end of our third cruise onboard our new floating containment unit, life seems to be pretty settled. My new colleague (henceforth referred to as LT) is proving herself to be not only an amazing vocalist but also great company - possibly karmic payback for all the problematic singers I have worked with.

We’ve made firm friends with the party band onboard - I’m rooming with their drummer and LT is rooming with their singer - and we’re already sad that they are only on contract for another fortnight. The chances of us getting along with their replacements as well as we do with them are astronomical, but hope springeth eternal.

The ship is super-relaxed with a great entertainments team: the assistant cruise director is brilliant - a bit of a north London ‘geezer’ with all the patter - and the cruise director is possibly the friendliest, most approachable I’ve worked with so far. The mood onboard is currently a bit glum as they are both leaving today - seems as soon as we turn up and get to know people they up and leave us!

The work is a bit different from the party band stuff I’m used to but we’ve settled, we play in a very chilled little corner of the ship which has a low-key, wine bar vibe. My acoustic guitar hasn’t seen this much action since I acquired it all those moons ago… it’s also proving to be a much greater physical task playing it than I had thought and my left hand has built up a considerable amount of muscle in these three weeks…

I’ve also finally got around to mastering my looping pedal and we’re embellishing our sets as much as we can with as many creative ideas as we can think of. It’s a whole new element of trickery for me and I’m pleased to report that I’m flush with inspiration and enthusiasm! We’re cross-referencing, mashing-up and segueing the devil out of anything and everything we can think of.

LT does a great job of playing the straight woman to my comedy patter, too. We’ve built up on stage personas of her being bossy - and beating me when we’re backstage - which has gone down really well with the audiences so far. I was barred from mentioning my seamen’s discharge book (which arrived yesterday, it’s a “thing” for those who work at sea despite the preposterous name).

Anywho, must go and rescue my socks from the laundry.

TTFN.

[nomdy-plume]

Eat, drink: for tomorrow we fly...

So my agent was kind enough to notify me two days ago that I would be flying off to the Canaries on Thurs eve. I was expecting to fly out on Wed so the extra day was much appreciated considering that we were due to move in to a new home on Wed - and spent all day Tues packing and loading up the removal van.

You catch me, dear reader, sat down and enjoying a peaceful lull in the maelstrom of my life. The steam rises delicately off of my cup of tea and my sister’s dog (Dame Tamione Wetnose-Pawsley) sniffs around my feet in her never-ending quest for snacks and/or attention.

Unfortunately, we could not fit everything into the van and our car, so we had to rise bright and early (with dawn and her Homeric rosy fingers) this morning to drive the 90mins back to collect the last of the things, take a final load of waste to the municipal rubbish tip, drop the front door key with the estate agent and come back here to await a call to collect our new house keys.

Any minute now I will be expected to spring into action to collect keys to our new home and then assist in the unloading of a entire household’s worth of stuff. I’m in no rush.

I still need to buy a few sets of guitar strings ahead of Thursdays flight off to the next contract. I’m incredibly happy to report that my colleague’s voice is every bit as amazing as I had suspected it would be. We had a great week holed up in a nice apartment next to a rehearsal studio in the north of England where we battered out a rep list of about 200 songs. Not only does she have a staggeringly good voice but she is really nice and easy to work with, too.

We never did find another bassist or keys player - it was proposed and agreed (mostly by my bank manager) that we would do the contract as an acoustic duo. This is definitely not my preferred choice as it means less fun and more singing for me but it is very nearly a literal case of beggars not being choosers. Ah well, it will be nice to dust off the acoustic for a few months...

However, just when it seemed we had overcome all challenges to us being able to go out and earn a living, the universe had a final twist for us. Understandably, our new employers would prefer it if we performed our later, up-beat sets to backing tracks. So, not only do we now need to go out and procure some backing tracks, we will then have to rehearse to them. It is now Wed afternoon, I believe our first sets will be on Fri afternoon...

Such an exciting life. So little time, so little money. I’m still pretty excited to be leaving cold, wet, windy Wales for the warmer climes of Tenerife tomorrow night though. There are plenty of dark grey clouds in the sky at the moment so it’s no surprise that there should be a silver lining in amongst them somewhere.

[nomdy-plume]

Plus ça meme...

So, here am I: close to finalising the sale of my parent’s house so that my widowed mother can be re-homed somewhere nearer the rest of the family so that I can leave her in the loving arms of the rest of the fam-a-lam.  I’m just starting to receive helpful texts from my bank informing me that I am flat busted after nearly a year of not being able to work, so now would be a good time...

I took steps: there was a band currently working on cruise ships who wanted a singing guitarist to join them on the next one. It would be a squeeze, but the dates kind of sat together in terms of when it was projected that we would be moving house, when rehearsals would start and how much time I would have to learn new repertoire.  Great!

No, not great.  It never is great.  What has transpired is that the sale of the house is delayed.... and delayed some more, delayed to the point where now I don’t know if it will happen at all, and I’m due to fly out to the contract on Nov 9th.  It had all looked so promising...

Also, a message from the band leader last night: “we’re losing the bassist and the keys player as they want to explore new opportunities but don’t worry as we’re pretty confident that we have replacements lined up!”  You mean ‘the nice and tight, battle-hardened band I was going to just slip alongside’ has now turned into ‘three guys who have never met each other with a singer and a drummer?‘

Sheeeeesh.... I’ve seen this all go badly wrong before...

Well, rehearsals start on Saturday for a week so as long as we get some bodies in by then, we may just have an outside chance of making this contract work. I’m confident that my mindless optimism and faith in the Almighty will ensure that turn this into nothing worse than a decent future anecdote.

What I will say is that I am still - despite everything (a guy’s gotta cling to something, right?) - keen to hear the singer sing as she has picked out a repertoire of some seriously tasty tunes.  She is either packing a voice box capable of taking doors off of hinges or she is kidding herself and wasting everyone’s time.  It may be for that alone that I am still 100% committed to the project - oh, and on my bank manager’s insistence, of course.

From a guitarist point of view, there’s nothing too left-field (there rarely is with the party band scene) but I do finally have to get around to playing some Van Halen as ‘Jump’ is on the playlist, alongside Beat It (which I’ve done before, to be fair).  I was chittery-chatterin’ with some friends last night about how - with me playing an EVH Wolfgang Special as my main guitar - I would be in danger of being mistaken for some crazed, Eddie Fan Halen, stalker-type character. I have time for Eddie, he was Dimebag’s main dude after all, but he was never a poster on my wall.

So, I have three days to familiarise myself with another 20-30 songs before heading on up the road (about 5hrs) to the rehearsals for a week before hanging around for four days before we fly out to the ship.

In that time I still need to make the house sale happen, get the funds squared away in the bank account, over see the move itself, do a load of decorating and DIY stuff to help mum get settled in before I can go off and earn some money whilst wintering somewhere sunnier than south Wales.

IF we can find a bassist and a keys player.  IF we can get us all rehearsed to the point where we may not get fired for being poor.

Still super curious to hear this girl sing, mind.  At least I should get that out the way this weekend.

Mwah x

[nomdy-plume]

As you were...

Well, harsh realities of fiscal requirements being what they are, I had to go off and work a contract at sea for 6 weeks.  My freshly-widowed mother seemed to get by OK without me and my bank manager was most relieved to see some pictures of the Queen passing into my account, so I guess things are moving along without too many other disasters taking place.

The contract was actually a nice break away from home: I feel as though I had the time and space to grieve properly - away from having to ‘be strong’ for my mum and sister. It wasn’t the most glamorous gig - gotta love the north sea for its abundance of easy, low-pressure, short-term gigs - but the band were great to work with and the food on the ship was among some of the best I’ve had.

I say ‘the band were great to work with’, allow me to develop that. The bassist was a lovely guy and came with the added bonus of being a chess enthusiast: I deeply enjoyed playing chess with the bassist on the contract before this, so it was wonderful to spend time poring over a board again.  We played around 20 games: I won once.  As I opined desperately to him: he had learnt very little - and had been practically suffocated by the smug self-deception of success.  I, on the other hand, had learned a great deal - so who had *really* won?

The drummer was also an excellent fellow: it was his first party band contract, having been touring and recording with an original outfit for a few years. Once he had figured out how easy and straightforward it is to play the same 150 tunes round and round and round, the only other hurdle he had to overcome was tedium.  He also brought the added bonus of appearing as an extra in the recent Hollywood cold war film ‘Red Sparrow’ - which was being shown in the ship’s cinema.  We had an excellent screening to ourselves, complete with raucous, popcorn-spilling, high-fiving when we spotted him.

The singer.  Hmmm... well, compared to other singers I had worked with (specifically on this same ship) she was a dream: didn’t complain any more than any of the rest of us, had a good voice and worked the crowd well.  However, she really raised the bar in terms of ‘not being a morning person’.  In fact, she blanked EVERYONE and ANYONE who dared have the temerity to approach or speak to her before 4pm.  She wasn’t horrible, she was just borderline aspergers.  One doesn’t like to imagine what awful histories or dark scars lie behind such seemingly inexplicable behaviours...

I’m not sure if an explanation can be found in the fact that - two weeks into the contract - she revealed, via social media, her support for one of the more/most rightwing of British political campaigns. I made a point of not raising it as a subject to her, people’s political beliefs should be respected and should only affect their professional environments in extreme and/or rare circumstances.

I was, nonetheless, slightly disgusted and found it hard to relate to her on any level after that.  But we rubbed along just fine, anyway.  It certainly made it more amusing to watch her suffer the overt attentions of the Filipino crew on board.  Those guys work incredibly hard 12 hours a day, every day for 6-9 months.  Being one of only 5 females on board - with blonde hair and blue eyes - she put up with a lot of attention from braggadocio-heavy guys.  Assuming that she is as racist as the rest of the gang she supports, she must have really struggled through gritted teeth to smile and laugh off their cheesy approaches.

Anyway, the 6 week gig passed easily enough - we worked out that we averaged one ‘good’ night (busy dance floor, appreciative applause, etc.) out of every 5 that we played.  Mostly, it would be three or four tired lorry drivers and maybe the same number of families with small kids let loose on the dancefloor. It did have its moments; about a week before the end, we had one incredibly drunk and obnoxious guy who was barely standing up but happy to dish out insults and offence throughout all 3 of our sets.  Towards the end of the last set, he lost his balance and knocked himself clean out on the stage.

Once we had stopped cheering and laughing, the security guys assured us that he would be OK and we finished the night of with big smiles on our faces. I hope he woke up without any lasting damage but, equally, I hope he woke up with the sorest of heads being compounded by the teenage kids he was with (looked like an adult overseeing a youth football tour?) berating him for being out of order and an embarrassment to everyone.

Happily, I haven’t touched my guitar for a week since I’ve been back, am now touting for gigs on land so will start practicing again this weekend.  Sir Yehudi Menuhin had a great line about how if he didn’t practice for one day then he would notice the difference it made to his playing: if he didn’t practice for three days then his friends would notice and if he didn’t practice for a week then EVERYBODY would notice.

Well, Sir Yehudi, I’ve just played 3x45 min shows every night for nearly six weeks and I’m enjoying a well-deserved rest!

[nomdy-plume]

Distraction therapy

So, back in the UK - broke and broken-hearted - and having dealt with the harsh realities of life in all its myriad twists and mortal turns, it dawned on me that I needed to work.

As much as I had a good mind to call my bank and tell them that I would need to extend my overdraft until nature took its cruel course on my father, a timely message from my old music management company revived in me thoughts of perhaps, maybe, one day actually singing (literally) for my supper again.

Timing is, and was, everything. Would I be able to join three others at the Management’s HQ in London for to meet, rehearse, film a promo vid and audition for a cruise company - all over the space of three days?

My father was at home, as comfortable as morphine can make anyone, with family around him and I needed to get away from both the financial brink and the dark cloud of impending, funereal certainty. I went, with sister promising to keep my posted should any developments occur.

First, we buried our grandmother. Given my father’s condition, it was a welcome relief to have something else to occupy our minds and hearts. A lovely service, my uncle gave a wonderful, curt, poignant and dignified speech about his mother - just as he had done for his father a decade ago.

It was nice - in perhaps the most gallingly horrific use of the word that I ever hope to admit to - to see my mother actually break down in tears at her mother’s service.  She had not been able to express grief at home apart from stealing a few sobs in the kitchen, away from my father’s bedside.  It must have been an epic release of emotion and sadness, it certainly felt like it as we walked her to the car to whisk her away from the mourners after the service to avoid any questions as to the state - or whereabouts, from those not in the close family loop - of my father.

The wake was a chance to catch up with family and friends, to reminisce and console and gain closure on one front. As I drove away I looked forward to further distancing myself from matters at home and once again picking up a guitar.

This blog WAS supposed to be about music, after all - so I’m happy to report that, not for the first time, I have fond solace and sanctuary nestling amongst amplifiers and mic stands.

The management agency are awesome. Not perfect, but far and away the best agents I’ve worked with - or even heard of.  Run by a couple of musicians out of a big house in London, they welcome acts into their house to stay for days on end to rehearse, eat copious amounts of amazing food, geek out over kit, techniques, artists and everything muso. At one time, when I was rehearsing there with an act that I went out to work with, we had four different bands there.  Such an incredible atmosphere of creativity and artistic expression.

I would work for, with and through these guys forever because good people in the music industry are as rare as hen’s teeth. And I love their cooking!  True to form, they were incredibly sympathetic about my position and understood the need for me to be working short contracts close to home.  On arrival I was introduced to two talented people - a bassist and a singer - and the next morning a drummer came into our lives who was to prove the perfect addition to our new quartet.

The singer, lovely as she was, was not a great morning person! The bassist was mellow, and took great delight in beating me at chess - twice.  The drummer was wonderfully hipster, polite and charming, we were all getting along like a house on fire very quickly.

It’s always a bit of a lottery when you are thrown together for contracts, but when work is on the table you almost don’t care.  You will get on with nearly everyone - and I have had to do so in the past! - in order to earn a crust.  But clearly we had all lucked out - we genuinely liked each other and everyone was very good and professional at what they did.

We sailed through rehearsals - filming the promo vids - and knocked the showcase for the contract out of the park. Occasionally I would get a text from back home updating me on my father’s condition, which would bring me back to reality with a bump, but mostly I could retreat away from that horror for a few days and look forward to enjoying performing again.

Timing being everything, it was as I left our new-found merry group and our celebratory we-just-secured-a-contract drinks that life reminded me of harsh realities.  I had got through three days without being called back home to deal with Dad’s decline but on arrival at my sister’s house, en route to collect some essentials, life smacked me in the face once more.

I walked in through her doorway to find her in a near state of panic:

“Mum’s just called me in tears... she couldn’t talk... I’ve been waiting for [her bestie - who had so far been an absolute rock in all of this family tragedy] to get here to look after the kids for me but now you are here you can sit tight and wait for her.”

She shot out the door and into her car, tearing off up the road and the 90 min drive to where mum and dad were. I made sure the nieces were OK and made myself a cup of tea.  It had taken me nearly 6 hours to drive from London - I had no idea that rush hour traffic (engorged by bank holiday traffic) would start at Bristol and would last all the way along the M4 to Swansea. I needed a cuppa.

Soon, the bestie had arrived and I was free to follow my sister down the road, all the time imagining my father’s demise.  Would I be too late? I tried to think of when my mother had called my sister and try to work out the timescales... no doubt, if the worst had happened, my mother would be too grief-stricken to call me.  My sister would still be an hour away, I could only guess and second guess myself as I sped faster and faster along.

I found myself going way over the speed limit - I played out a scenario in my head where police would stop me, I would tell them that I was racing home to try and be with my father on his death bed, and hoped that they would offer me an escort, sirens blazing, through the traffic on the way.  My sister would later tell me that this was exactly the scenario she had hoped for when she was rushing to my grandmother.

Luckily - I think? - I managed to avoid both police and disaster as I broke all known records for the journey home. Dad was comfortable and stable, mum had simply been overcome with emotion - and felt terrible for causing such panic and alarm.  Still, we were all together as a family now - jailbird sibling aside,  We held dad’s hand as he laboured to breathe in bed, tubes sticking out of him as he gasped and occasionally struggled to sit upright in bed.

The drugs eased his pain but rendered him almost catatonic.  Every now and again he mustered a response or a reaction.  Brief, fleeting moments where his old personality and character was allowed to re-surface. He was still Dad.

As I type this, a district nurse sits with us around my father, and has advised us that he may not last the night. It appears as though I will have enough time - all of April - to address the administration of the arrangements that accompany such as passing.  I will be here to help my mother get everything attended to before I head out on the contract.  For this, I am grateful.

It will be my parents’ 48th wedding anniversary on April 1st, in two days time.  I was always amused that they were married on April Fool’s Day.  My mother has made the observation that my father - a chartered accountant by trade - would likely be the consummate professional and pass away on April 5th, the end of the tax year.

I’m looking forward to being able to grieve, to not have to remain strong for everyone’s sake.  I’m looking forward to not seeing my Dad in such discomfort: I believe his mental anguish is as bad as the physical.  This has been his worst nightmare, he had always stated that he didn’t want to be a burden - that he had wanted to go suddenly like his father before him.

I will have time to mourn before I head out with my guitar again. I will have plenty of emotion to express through it and I will be grateful for being able to do so. There will be certain songs which I suspect we will play - standard fare for party and function bands - that I was lucky enough to play with my father (a drummer).  Tears will be shed, memories will be savoured.

I will keep you posted.

[nomdy-plume]

Life isn’t fair.

So, two months after relocating to Austin to be with my girlfriend and a life of live music, good food and interminable sunshine, I get a call.

"They're switching off gran's life-support"

OK - I'd cuddled my goodbyes to her before flying out Stateside. Her decline since then had been painful, not least for her as she'd fallen in her kitchen and lain there all day with a smashed face until my sister had broken into her house in the afternoon.

But she'd been happy and comfortable, nursed and fussed over, since then. A relatively brief and dignified exit from this vale of tears. Off to give my late grandfather 'a bloody row' for leaving her ten years earlier.

"There's something else..."

I knew that tone in my sister's voice. I knew it because I'd not heard it before.

"Dad's got cancer."

That soft, pillowy ringing of background tinnitus.

"It's his liver and gall bladder... we think they've found it early..." She floundered bravely.

I knew they hadn't found it early, Mum had been telling me that Dad had lost 12kilos since Christmas. He'd told me that he was suffering from his annual bout of flu when I'd hugged him goodbye in Jan.

Mum told me that there was no need to rush back - if Dad thought people were flying back to say their last goodbyes it might end his resistance completely. Mam (gran) would have a memorial service later in the summer which I could attend. Ashes to be scattered over the waterfall near her village on the side of a mountain in Wales.

Numb, I brooded. A few days later, an emotional exchange on Messenger with my cousin. We'd been raised as brothers, he and his brother having lost their mother to cancer when very young.

"You have to come back."

I knew it would be a one-way ticket - hopefully to help nurse Dad through a successful recovery. I wouldn't be seeing Austin for a long time, regardless. A few days later and the message that Mam had passed peacefully in her sleep. Suddenly, I felt angry for not already being home.

My girlfriend and her family in Austin had been nothing but supportive since I'd told them of events back home. She was already prepared for my announcement, helping me - uncomplainingly - book flights and was perfect, supportive company in the two days before my departure.

I'd had to return my volunteer badge for the SXSW festival, I would not be around to help at the music venue I'd been allocated for the week. Three flights later, I'm being driven by my sister to my parents house in the far south-west of Wales.

"You better prepare yourself, Dad is very weak: he'll be pissed off if you burst into tears."

My aunt had, I'd been informed, held it together during her visit before bursting into tears and crying all the way back home to the valleys. My uncle had been roundly upbraided by everyone for trying to phone his brother to 'say goodbye'. All efforts were being made to nurture hope: I girded my loins.

Crumpled into a chair in the lounge, supported by my mother's arm, my father struggled to raise his head to greet me. I kissed the top of his head and embraced him gently. He looked annoyed with someone - anyone, everything - at being in this state to greet me.

Pale and clearly in pain, his ex-rugby player's frame was now adorned with twigs where his arms had been. Loose, wan folds of skin hung off him as he shook gently and forced a smile.

Life isn't fair.

It's not fair that some people never have the loving, stable homelife that our family were blessed with. It's not fair that some families don't have a provider like my Dad, busting his hump for 40 years, suffering the M4/M25 commute hell and climbing through the corporate jungle every day so that we'd never lack and would be blessed beyond measure.

It's not fair that some of our closest friends and family lost their parent(s) when they were young and, often, very young. It's not fair that their fathers couldn't be there to watch them score their first try or play a big show.  It’s not fair that some of them never even had the chance to say goodbye.

It's not fair that my brother is languishing in a foreign prison with little or no chance of getting out and home to see his father one last time. It's not fair that we had to take the decision not to tell the jailbird progeny about his father - or grandmother - for fear of a remand sentence turning quickly into an assault charge (or much, much worse).

It's not fair that some people won't face their final hours at home surrounded by loved ones, as comfortable as can be with everything said that was needed to be said.

It's not fair that some people will not be remembered, seen off with bittersweet gatherings full of ale and tales and reunions of family members and friends alike.

It's not fair that some widows will not be left surrounded and secure, safe in the knowledge that their future will not see them struggling or scraping through their days alone and without grandchildren and great-grandchildren to warm their knees.

It's not fair that I should feel the anguish of seeing my Dad writhing in pain in between slurps of morphine, realising that no-one would conscionably allow a dog to suffer like this.

But that's life all over, isn't it? It's just not fair.

[nomdy-plume]

Austin - thoughts so far

So, three weeks into having dropped my bags off here in Austin, I’ve been amazed and awed by the place.  The self-titled ‘Live music capital of the world’ is hitting a good average so far - saw an infectiously good bar band a few days ago with a singer with rare talent, also an incredible blues bar band the week before that.

I like it!

Have been told of a good jam night to try and get in on this week, my search for a place in amongst this musical smelting pot continues!

The food has - predictably enough - also been amazing.  I thought I knew ribs... turns out I had so much to learn... our apartment complex has a gym, I’d better make sure I run the calories off.

Texas gets very cold in winter.  This past month has been almost a Dickensian experience early in the mornings: it’s a town set up for debilitating heat in summer, our apartment is not geared up for cold temps around freezing!  I am assured that the place warms up in the summer.

Have seen the Willie Nelson statue, not yet the Stevie Ray Vaughan one. All in good time.

Till next time!