Memoirs of a Roadie

Standing (still)

Posted on 9th January 2008

VNV Nation at Barfly, Birmingham

Just before Christmas, JJ and I went to see VNV Nation at The Barfly (downstairs at The Institute for those that remember that instead) in Birmingham. The gig itself was great and you can see my photos online. However, I was a little disappointed with the photos. A woman near the front looked like she had a camera similar to my Fujifilm FinePix 5100, and I wished I taken mine along now, but seeing as I had my Nokia N95 camera phone with me, at 5MP I thought it would be enough to get some decent pictures. Alas no. I haven't looked into the technical data too well, but I have a feeling that the problem stems from the sensor, as in dark settings the picture pixelates far too much and has difficulty focusing. It seems to work well in bright light, except for camera shake, but for gigs it just doesn't match the quality of my Fuji camera.

With so many people having camera phones, and there were plenty of people taking photos at VNV Nation, I wonder how much effort is being made to stop people walking into gigs with cameras. When I first started going to gigs, walking in with cameras and tape recorders wasn't a problem. The during the late 80s and 90s most larger venues insisted on searching you and confiscating any recording equipment. It meant bootleggers got very good a walking in with tape recorders very cleverly concealed, although that wasn't too difficult with some of the profession recorders as they were quite small.

I haven't done any recording of gigs for a long time, and although I still have my recorder and mic, it is currently awaiting hibernation in the attic. I would have loved to have recorded VNV Nation, and in retrospect I wished I'd recorded KMFDM at Dudley JB's back in October 2005 (my first KMFDM gig). I don't go to that many gigs these days, but one aspect of not having the recording equipment strapped to me is that I can jump around, shout and sing without worry that I'm ruining the recording.

I'm well out of the tape trading scene these days, so if there are any recordings of the tour, whether or not Birmingham is among them, I don't hold out much hope of finding a copy.

The band looked like they really enjoyed the gig, and for their first time playing Brum it went down very well, so fingers crossed they'll return next time around. There has always been a big goth scene in Brum, so hopefully the likes Apoptygma Beserk and Front 242 can be tempted this way. And while we're at it, a visit from Fields Of The Nephilim and/or Last Rights wouldn't go unappreciated. Although most of all I'm hoping to finally get to see Ministry on their final tour. Oh and KMFDM can come back too :)

Twenty Years On

Posted on 3rd January 2008

Ark Appreciation Pages

Sometimes it's easy to think we live in a small world.

Over Christmas I played a few games of Hunters And Gatherers with DanDan. It's a game he really likes and the rest of my games are little too advanced for him at the moment. As a consequence I don't get to play Settlers Of Catan, El Garnde, Rail Baron or Elfenland very much these days. Every now and then I think about going along to a local games club, but never seem to get around to it. On New Year's Day I decided to lookup the Halesowen Boardgamers website again, except it seems I found the old website. I've thought about going along a few times over the last 5 years or so, but with their meetings clashing with Perl or Linux meetings, it's not happened.

As the website I found (the old one as it turned out) hadn't been updated in a while, I felt prompted to check whether the group is still going and sent an email. It seems they do still meet, every Wednesday at the same venue. Then I got a second email from Dave, who helps run the club. He'd had a quick look at my website and was surprised to discover that I had been involved with the band Ark. It turns out he was the original drummer with Damascus, the band that laid the foundations for Ark, and I even had him listed on the website! He tells me he has lots of stories, photos and even some tapes of the early days, so fingers crossed some of them may materialise on the website at some point. If nothing else he says I've definitely got to come along to a club meet :)

Even though Ark ended over 12 years ago, there is still a lot of affection and interest for them. Band members still occasionally drop me a line to let me know what they're doing or help to fill in some of the gaps on the website. Fans often ask if I have various releases available. Every now and then I'll meet someone who has seen them live, usually at Edwards No.8 and will reminisce how much they enjoyed the gig. With Gel still playing locally with Bleeding Hearts and John Jowitt still playing with IQ, there is still plenty to keep the interest going. As such, this year more than ever, I plan to upgrade the Ark site. I have been doing bits in the background for most of last year, but I have so many photos and tapes I really should get a move on and make them available. Who knows may be it'll mean I get to meet a few more band members and fans.

Another music/techie crossover moment happen a few months ago when I was arranging some dates with Leicester LUG to go over as part of the 2008 Birmingham.pm World Tour. Gary who organises the meetings also happened to look at my website and discovered that I was involved with Prolapse. It turns out he knows Turk, and used to work with a few of the guys, and sees them occasionally around Leicester too. It's quite possible we've even met a few times at the gigs. I'll be doing a couple of talks for the LUG this year, so it'll be fun catching up with Gary to see what other stories he has to tell of the band :)

In these instances it isn't really a small world, partly as Haleowen and Leicester aren't that far away, and also that both Ark and Prolapse are fairly recent memories, but it is nice to cross paths with people who remember the gigs and have interesting tales to tell. Plus they were both great bands and are worth remembering. I'm looking forward to meeting up with both Dave and Gary, and hopefully it'll prompt me to sort out the photos and tapes I have of both bands :)

Kings of Evermore

Posted on 17th October 2007

Bleeding Hearts @ The Boarshead Taphouse, Kidderminster

A couple of weekends ago, I went along to The Boarshead Taphouse in Kidderminster to witness the live recording of the new Bleeding Hearts live album. After playing for around 2 hours, and considering it was free entry, I would call that value for money. I told Nicole's brother that I'd got him in on the guest list, which he thought was great until he saw the poster advertising free entry :) The boys played a great selection of old, new and unreleased songs and ripped up a storm. The live album is only likely to feature around 10 songs from the 20+ set, so hopefully they'll be able to include a few classics in there.

As previously, I took my camera along. The first 30 minutes of the set I tried to record on video. Unfortunately several people kept wandering in front of the camera, so although none of the tracks are suitable for professional airing, Nick was thinking of adding one or two to Bleeding Hearts's own website. I now have a new 5"+ tripod, so hopefully I can get a better viewpoint for recording video in the future. I ended up taking over 1,000 photos, which worked out at roughly 16 shots a minute, and whittled it down to 175 for my selection. I've given the boys over 300 to choose from for their own purposes and have already asked whether they can use them on the inner sleeve of the album, which will be nice.

However, the venue wasn't the best for lighting, so I had some problems with some of the shots. I haven't got a top of the range camera, so lighting is important. Despite trying several settings to get the best out of the camera, the shutter speed still isn't fast enough for my liking. There were some great shots I would have liked to have got of Gel and Nick, but the light from the PAR cans was just too weak to capture them mid-movement. The Roadhouse photos came out much better simply because of the professional lighting rig the venue has, so I hope this set doesn't prove too disappointing for them.

A while ago I considered buying a small lighting rig, so that when I take photos of Nicole or her band, Slim Pickins, I can focus the lights and use the colour gels, just as I want them. Then I can bring them along to gigs for friends like Bleeding Hearts, and give them a much better stage lighting, and thus take much better photos. Unfortunately these sort of small rigs don't usually turn up on eBay, so I'll have to put the feelers out to my music industry contacts to see if anyone is selling off some old equipment. They'd be great for house parties for the kids in the summer too. DanDan and Ethne can pretend they're doing a real gig :)

For my selection of photos from the Bleeding Hearts gigs, see the links below:

• 29th Sept 2007 - Boarshead Taphouse, Kidderminster
  
• 21st Apr 2007 - The Roadhouse, Stirchley, Birmingham
  

Achilles Last Stand

Posted on 13th September 2007

So Led Zeppelin are reforming for a special tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegün. Following my rant last week about the ticket prices, I was a little disappointed to see all the tickets would be £125, but seeing as this is a one-off gig and all proceeds are going to support charities in Ahment's name, it is a little different.

I would love to go, but seeing as the gig is on Nicole's birthday (26th November 2007) and ticket prices is really a little more expensive than I would like, I probably won't. However, I am rather pleased to see an event like this being handle pretty well when it comes to tickets. Firstly they are being distributed by public ballot, which is likely to mean the real fans actually get the tickets. Harvey Goldsmith has also warned that anyone found selling their tickets on eBay will have them cancelled. It seems the promoters have thought about this with a little more care than some other concerts, where the tickets have sold out in seconds and largely to touts in the know, large corporations and those lucky enough to get through on the phones.

I would love to see the band, as I never got to see them back in the 70s. I only started going to gigs 8 months after John's death. Oddly enough the only member of the band I have ever met is John Bonham! But that's another story. A friend who was a few years older than me, got to see them at Knebworth in 1979 and recalled an amazing gig. One thing that did cross my mind about the forthcoming show is that they are being supported by several other acts. This is likely to mean you're only going to get about 60-90 minutes worth of Zep. For many who have never seen them this will be cherished, but back in their hey days, it wasn't uncommon for them to do nearly 3 hour sets.

For those of us that can't get to see the event, I'm really hoping it gets filmed and released in its entirety. If they ever do decide to tour though, I really hope that I can get to see them, as even all these years later, I'm pretty sure they are going to put on an amazing performance.

The Teller

Posted on 5th September 2007

A few months ago I was having a bit of a clear out. It meant sorting through some old boxes in the loft and getting rid of old paperwork and bits I'd accumulated over the years. In one of the boxes I found a batch of floppy discs I'd previously been looking for. Most contained nothing too interesting, but a few I'd save various music related things on. The original artwork for the Prolapse official bootleg tapes, various Ark lyrics and perhaps most importantly my own lyrics.

During the 80s and 90s I wrote quite a number of songs. I kind of stopped towards the end of the 90s as I got more and more into programming. Thankfully I thought it a good idea to save several of the ones I'd written onto computer disk at some point, so now I've found them I'm going to start putting them online. I have many more that I never recorded or never finished, so still have plenty of bits of paper with lyrics and maybe one day I'll get around to finishing them. Or maybe DanDan or Ethne will pick up where I left off.

Some of my songs have since been published and two in particular have featured on a Slim Pickins album. Nicole took two of my lyrics and added music to both and altered some of the lines to suit her, then the band recorded both songs, Nothing I Can Do (my original) and My Love Lies Unrequited (original title Love, Unrequited), for their album Scenes from a Crowded Bar. Nicole has been mulling over other lyrics of mine, so we'll see whether they get taken any further.

In the meantime, enjoy some of my musings from those two decades.