The Big Heist

It might be helpful to think of bands as families. Sometimes it definitely isn’t, but sometimes it is. For the purpose of the next few paragraphs it might be. With some families it’s pretty clear who’s in the family and who isn’t. You’re linked through blood or marriage. In these families maybe there’s a Gary who has been in a relationship with your Aunt Linda for 25 years but they never married so your mom would say he’s not really IN your family. Maybe you have an Aunt Abby who isn’t biologically related to you, has never been in a relationship with anyone but shows up for holidays and is the first person anyone calls when they need a dresser moved or have an extra ticket to see the Bee Gees tribute act. But is she IN the family? After decades OUT Pierre finally got IN, when laws changed and he could marry great uncle Bertrand.

 

Most bands that have been around for a length of time have accumulated a multitude of former drummers, van lenders, tour bookers, t-shirt designers, sofas to sleep on, providers… and I think that they are all in the family in a very real sense even if they are not technically in the band.

I’m not IN the band, except for when I am. It’s a fine distinction, and maybe in many ways a meaningless one. It's the deputy here by the way, in case you're confused and thinking the singer is getting all mysterious! When the bass player couldn’t do a European Tour a few years back I filled in for him. When the accordion player couldn’t do some dates last year I filled in for him. Now the piano player is in Portugal and I’ve been filling in for him this summer. 

 

Last night I was watching the film Paddington with my partner and my daughter. My daughter is young and is going through a stage of being frightened by films. Not specific films or specific things that might happen in films, maybe it started that way but now it’s graduated to being the idea of films in general. TV programmes are totally fine. Before some of you get too carried away with coming up with theories as to why this may be the case and solutions mined from your years of parenting - don’t worry, it’s all under control, though I do appreciate your concern.  

 

Anyways, we’re watching the film and it’s all going very well and I get a text message. 'Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.' (It’s actually this blog entry that you’re reading at this moment, though I didn’t know it at the time for obvious reasons). It needed to be done by the end of the weekend. This weekend. Which gave me about 24 hours. The singer was at a festival and unable to write it because he was being festive. I don’t know what the other band members were up to in case you were wondering.

 

The Paddington back-story is included for the purpose of removing any veneer of glamour from the proceedings. We don’t operate from undisclosed rock star locations. I know you know that already, but it seems of some importance. After all you would think of things differently if the paragraph read:

 

I’m in the studio coaxing atmospheric sounds from 1970s synthesizers and I get a text message. Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.

 

or

 

I was riding my Harley Davidson down the coastline, I stopped for a moment to admire the sunset and I get a text message. Emergency. The band is in trouble. There’s a blog entry that needs to be written.

 

A band can be like being in a family, but also a business, a sports team, a monogamous relationship, an extra-marital relationship, an abusive relationship, a biker gang, a church group, an addicts recovery group, a pottery class, a book club and plenty of other things. Sometimes when you’re really lucky it feels a bit like being part of a rag tag group of petty thieves planning a big heist. The Big Heist. The one that will set you up for life sipping umbrella drinks living on a tropical island. The one where no one gets hurt, where everyone gets to wear goofy disguises and the gutsy detective with domestic difficulties will never find that tiny clue and put the pieces together.

The Odd Folk are working a big heist and I’m in on it!

And what’s the heist? Well it’s not actually stealing something in this case. It’s making something, something potentially immortal; an Album. But at the very real risk of extending this metaphor too far and compromising it’s structural integrity - maybe it really is about stealing something, creating a perfect moment in time and capturing it before it gets away.

Bands have two separate identities; the real time one and the recorded one. When we perform live that’s happening in real time, the audience is experiencing and directly influencing and being a part of something that will only happen once and then when it’s over it lives on in individual memories that change over time and become unique to each person. Well, that’s probably a bit of wishful thinking, most of us probably don’t remember much of anything about most of the gigs we’ve been to.

The recorded identity can be revisited countless times by countless people and exists outside of the passage of time. We might change our opinion of the music, get sick of it and grow to like parts of it we didn’t before. Maybe the guitar effects sound really out of date now, but the recording itself doesn’t change.

 

Some bands are considered great live bands that never managed to quite capture the magic on studio recordings and some bands have meticulously (or through sheer luck) managed to capture something timeless on a recording that can never be replicated or equalled in performance. Some bands try to make every detail of a live shows sound as much like the album as possible, others want to capture as much of the raw energy and spontaneity of a live show as they can on the recording. Some bands just need something to sell at gigs so the can cover fuel costs. 

 

Every band has a part of them hoping that they might be able to make the rarest of the rare; the Great Album. Lots of bands have a few great songs, most bands have had magic nights where the crowd was amazing and everything fell into place, but the great album? Now that’s the big prize. The one where you start it from the beginning and you don’t want to skip any of the songs. The one that seems to be alive and timeless at the same time and connects the whole big family surrounding every band.

 

Yeah, it’s not like the old days. A good portion of people don’t have CD players anymore, stream all of their music online, and would never consider listening to an album from beginning to end. Vinyl records have made a comeback for a certain population, but the idea of recorded music being something you can hold in your hands is for many an old fashioned idea. Does that really matter though?

The planning is under way, meetings are being held in secret rock star locations and texts are being sent during family film nights. There are demo recordings being mixed and evaluated, recipes are being tweaked, microphone positioning is being discussed, melodies stumbled upon during late nights in Belgium are finding their way in, memories of times gone by and things yet to come, familiar sounds and some surprising ones.

Watch this space for more updates.

 

The heist is in the works, and you’re all invited.

 

How to be in a Band

When we write and upload these blogs, other than a few stats the website gives us on how many of you read it and roughly what countries you all live in, we don’t really get much of a picture. I imagine a good majority of our readership have seen the band at some point, perhaps we’ve shared some drinks and even slept on your sofa. But I’m also told a good proportion of you have never been to a gig, maybe never listened to a track, and definitely not offered up your sofa. So then the next question is what do you all read it for? That demographic is more interesting to me - the bass player - and if pushed I’d probably break it up as follows:
 
40% of you are our friends and extended family, people who live in the band’s home county and who we often see smiling in the crowd, or smiling on the beach, or smiling in the Co-op. You read mainly because you like us and want to keep half an eye on the next gig, or the last one (shame, you missed a good one too!)
 
30% of you are our fans from further reaches; friends we’ve made in Holland, Belgium and other countries we’ve left piano leads in. Friend’s who have a copy of our album thrust into their hands upon leaving Judi’s glorious campsite and welcome us in. You read for a dose of Anglo nostalgia and a glimpse into what we get up to when we aren’t making a mess of your sofa. 
 
A good 20% of you are musicians or are at least interested in music and use these as a guide for how not to do it. You avoid all the pitfalls that we make continuously and your band are now getting all the gigs that we didn’t.
 
5% are the singer’s ex-girlfriends. You’ve heard half the songs are about you and want to keep tabs on any future releases!
 
At least 3% are bots because robots like reading too and some of these stats don’t add up. I mean 624 readers in Russia!?
 
And the final 2% are our current partners and family members trying to work out where the hell we were all weekend and what that strange smell is now we’re back. 

And while I’m in the mode of completely-made up statistics I’d like to add just a couple more. Of this very diverse readership I’d split you up as follows: 
 
A wicked but small 5% of you know of our reputation for misadventure and tune in to hear us fail. It hurts but we appreciate your loyalty regardless

A further 5% of you don’t necessarily want us to fail, but definitely don’t want to miss it if it happens. That’s fair.

And the remaining 90% of you, the resounding majority, are on our side and are rooting for us. You chuckle at our misadventures but you smile at the silver linings. 
 
So this one goes out, partly for that 20% who are embarking on their own musical journeys and keeping tabs for any tips to help them along the way, but mainly for the 90% who like hearing that we sometimes get things right. 

Belan Hall 1887

Belan Hall has featured in these blogs before back when we recorded our second album Haul Away so I won’t go into too much detail there. It’s a grand wooden lodge in Mid-North Wales, it smells like wood-smoke and old books on the inside and wet grass and wet sheep on the outside. Despite part-owning the place The Singer still needs a list of written directions to get there (phones are of no use here) but when we do it always feels like home. 

The plan was a simple if not fairly ambitious one. Rehearse and record the selection of new songs we’ve had shaking around in our pockets before they gather too much fluff. Capture them well enough to imagine as a finished product without it needing to actually be one. What the hell’s the point of that you - and our partners left at home with small children - may ask? Well while recording Haul Away we arrived slightly naively with too few songs and even less idea of how they should sound. This time we want to sit with these songs a while, play them in all the places we like to play music; sat by the fire with friends, in the kitchen on a quieter day, and our old forte - the car stereo (preferably during a long drive home if the singer has any sway over it). This recording will be the blueprint of our next album, but I imagine we’ll shuffle the deck a few times and add in a couple more aces over the coming months.  

The tentative target was ten tracks in only three days, tentative because during Haul Away we struggled to complete three tracks in that time. But although it’s easy to draw comparisons to the Haul Away sessions this was to be very different; there wasn’t the same pressure and we weren’t the same musicians. I’m not impartial but I like to think we’re a lot better now and certainly far mellower, which counts for a lot when you have tracks to record, dinner to cook and fires to light before dusk and you’re sat debating whether to add a second shaker part to the chorus. The old us would have argued hours away over these small decisions, the new (older) us didn’t waste the energy; the group decision was enough. It tells all that we drove away from Belan Hall after three days with not ten but twelve songs recorded, and perhaps the best of the bunch being penned that very weekend, on the veranda, glass in hand; the sort of occasion we imagine it being replayed in.

So I guess as well as throwing a load of made-up statistics at you I’ve hopefully covered some of the ‘what’ and ‘why’, but with any luck this is where the Singer picks up - either in this blog or the follow up - and covers the important bit, the ‘how’, what made it a special one. He sees beauty in the detail and has a way of painting that picture with words so treat this as the frame. All I’ll add is that besides the music the band’s had a much needed refuel of everything that we’ve missed over the past year and a bit. The long drives together - or what we call our paid counselling sessions - the laughter, and simply sharing the same space and ideas again. And for you, the 90% of our readers who are out there cheering us on, we felt like this was a welcome chapter on ‘How to be in a band’ and how to occasionally get it right.

A new era

It's been a long time since we've sat down on here with the purpose of updating you with actual news, with physical events, real life gigs that you can actually go to, that involve real people and crowds! During the long lockdown months we have been wallowing in the past, gloriously, like pigs, reminiscing with rose tinted glasses, regurgitating all our past endeavours. We've written eulogies about our cars, about our family homes, about our kids, not eulogies about them mind, we just added them up and realised they outnumber us and that's worth a blog too! We've documented that time we nearly died in Sweden, that time the piano player tried to go solo during a pandemic, and we finally disclosed what really happened in Berlin! Or maybe that one's still a secret? Anyway, you get the picture, for over a year we have made no new memories and so trawling up the past is all we've had. 

And thanks to you for continuing to support us, for staying connected. It means a lot and to read your nice comments and from so many of you we don't yet know. It remains our goal to come and find you all. In time.

But now, suddenly, life is almost back to some kind of normal. Is this a new era? Post covid! The calendar is filling up which is crazy cause we don't even have a calendar; gigs are being rushed down on scraps of paper and then lost and doubled booked. Last week I said yes to two things on the same day just because I panicked. I'm so out of practice with the running of a band that I can't remember what to do and who's even in the band anymore? The piano player is still in Portugal and nobody knows (least of all him) if he's ever coming back? The accordion player is about to give birth at exactly the same time as starting a huge theatre job (haven't I taught him anything!). The bass player is off walking in the Lake District and expecting his second child and the drummer's just moved back to the Forest of Dean. Needless to say we are incredibly displaced at the moment, perhaps as stretched as we've ever been, but the show must go on. At least The Deputy is keen and it's quite possible that he will step in for all of us at some point this summer, even the drummer, despite the fact he doesn't really play drums. Yet! 

That's if we remember the songs, or better still our instruments! We had a rehearsal the other day, our first in 6 months and it was hilarious how bad we were, worryingly so. It's one thing forgetting the lyrics, but when everyone is playing different chords, in different keys, it's frightening. A bit like Jazz.

Anyway, we take to the stage in a pub garden this coming Sunday, and I have a feeling half of Penzance will be there. We're up in Wales in late June, then there's this gig on a boat, then back in Cornwall in early July for a run of shows that include an open air theatre, a wedding, two festivals and two arts centres. That's 10 gigs and they all arrived at the same time, each scribbled on the nearest thing I could find; on the chalkboard, now covered over with doodles, on my hand (since washed), on the table (since cleaned) and perhaps most bizarrely on a old envelope that has since been reused and sent back to CTG Windows. 

In other news, there is a stage show being written about this very blog which is kinda bonkers! After some meetings over the winter; Arts Council Funding is being secured and How NOT to be in a Band will be turned into a live show. All these blogs, 85 of them, and some 300 pages of waffle will be turned on its head and bought to life. All our greatest adventures and our very best failures... The plan is to tour it as a live music and theatre show, to show you what really happens behind closed doors, and what really went on in Berlin! So watch this space as they say, which is a stupid saying really, cause this space won't do anything. So maybe watch something else, or better still carry on as normal until we wheel out it in front of you.

The new album is coming along too, it's a bit like watching paint dry isn't it, waiting for updates on this mythical record, here we are talking about the third album for the third year in a row. Groundhog day. But plans are afoot, and with the podcast too! We're planning a lot this year. Probably too much. Definitely too much. It's going to be hard enough to remember the songs and find that scrap of paper with all the important information on it.

The furture is bright, or brighter than it looked over the last year certainly, despite the fact we're all in different places again and expecting two new babies which will makes things trickier. But we've learnt to combat these things in the past. Being on each other's doorsteps seems to make us complacent, and obstacles often bring us closer. And if the last year has taught us anything, it's that we've really missed playing music, and you've missed seeing it too. And that's what's spurring us on. And the loss of Europe as a realistic touring destination has made us hell bent on returning there next year, come what may, cause you always want what you can't have, and whether we come in under the carpet or on bicycles, we will be back!

the next odd folk tour...

So thanks for staying with us and please do come and see us soon. I'm hoping to upgrade the website too, something I've been promising for a decade. Failing that, give us follow on Instagram, it seems that's how a band's progress is judged these days ;) That and how many scraps of paper you can loose. Notches on the bedpost. 

Beam me up Scotty

Breaking type here. Not one for eulogies. And if this has nothing to do with the band then that's on me. But I owe it to Scotty to pen some words to him. And anyway, it does have a link, he was the first drummer we ever recruited, and though he never played a gig, he was courted for years, rehearsed a bunch of times but life always got in the way, of both of us.

He was a good soul with a wicked smile, a man of ideas, a man who fed off positivity although he always had a grumbling nature, which made him almost more endearing. A keen surfer, actor, writer but he most excelled at music, he was an amazing percussionist, with impeccable rhythm and a huge knowledge of world music, a big pioneer for bringing Latin and African influences down here to the end of the land. 

We're a close bunch down here, and though many of us move away and pursue other things, we stay connected, it's a small place, full of big characters, a little cut adrift from the mainland. It's always been a creative hub. And if our parents grew up with art then perhaps, as the decades shifted, we grew up with music and dancing. And Scotty was at the forefront of that, whether banging drums, congas, pots and pans, or perhaps more fervently as a DJ broadening our minds to yet more new and exciting grooves. 

He was someone that was always there when it mattered, you might not see him for months but he always popped up in the right places, at the right times. Lazy tones, softly spoken, worldly, he traveled, chasing the waves, collecting music, coming home with new ideas. Eager to make things happen and when they didn't he could grumble, more than most, and we'll miss that too, that low growl like the warning of a dog. He loved setting the world to rights, having a good old moan. But he loved his home, despite the lack of opportunity, for all the art and culture, we can be a narrow bunch at times, we're dreamers more than doers. And that can be frustrating. 

It's strange to think we never played with him, the one that got away, we rehearsed for weeks in prep for a summer of gigs but somehow it didn't happen. Pity that, he'd have added such a flare and flavour. Pity a lot. I'll miss that winning smile, the bullet wink, the crooked nose, the tousled hair, the dulcet tones. I'll miss the next idea, the next big thing. I'll miss the moaning, taking pride in being middle aged, old before his time.

Life is short. Be sweet to each other.

RIP Scotty - see you on the other side my friend

The next generation

When the accordion player announced he was having a baby this year all the usual fanfare of love and support rippled through the band, and while we all clapped him on the back, I quickly did the maths. 9 babies born in 10 years, what a pity it wasn't 10, cause that would be really spooky; I almost had another just for the symmetry! As it happened I didn't need to, the bass player beat me to it.

10 babies in 10 years! You just can't write it! Which, by the way, is a ridiculous saying. Just like 'you can't make that shit up'. Because quite clearly you can; you'd just make it up, but I don't know why you'd bother. Making babies up would be weird. 

We certainly haven't made ours up; just to endear ourselves to you, or to make it even more remarkable that we have achieved what we have with kids in toe! We're more likely to lean on it the other way; we haven't achieved more because we've had so many kids!

But then 7 people having 10 kids isn't especially groundbreaking when a group of friends hit a certain age. Baring in mind that one person had 3 of them, it means the other 6 had 7 kids which is hardly anything to write home about and wouldn't make much of a blog!

And I'm only counting the 7 regular bandmates here; cause if I counted all the musicians we've used and all the babies born it wouldn't even make a headline. 

20 people had 15 babies! You wouldn't buy that paper.

Maybe I should change tact and talk about... oh wait there is nothing else to talk about! 'We're empty of both adventure and anecdote'. I wonder how many times I can shoehorn the bass player's saying into a blog without him citing plagiarism!

And there is something to be said about having kids, and the effect that has on your life and work. Kids have largely shaped our trajectory and with each new heir that is born, so we are further restricted. Ooo wrong word. Enriched. That's better. But you know what I mean; kids dominate your lives and rightly so. The old way has come to an end and there is a new focus. It's universally acknowledged that having them makes it harder to advance your job and career, and that your work could be sacrificed for up to 5 years. Well we've been churning them out for 10 years now, that means our whole existence has been sacrificed, or maybe 'confined' is a better word. Sacrifice makes you think of slaughter, and we're only a folk band after all.

But has having them really mean't we've not achieved our goals? Kinda depends what our goals were? We've under-achieved in that we're not a famous band, but I don't think any of us set out to be one. Otherwise we'd write a pop song and all the dress the same and use auto tuner and buy 'likes' on Facebook. And we've certainly over-achieved in terms of adventures and making memories. And anyway I think our jobs have restricted us just as much, if not more, than the kids. I certainly try not to let children get in the way of this enterprise, because, let me tell you, without this I wouldn't be half the parent I am. As I have said many times before, the 'release' that being in a band gives - or any hobby for that matter - is so important to your mental health and therefore the health of your children. But I have let work get in the way, because let's face it, this isn't a particularly profitable enterprise, despite our best endeavours, cause we haven't had the time to make it one. Why? Because work and babies got in the way. And there's the rub.

We've all dealt with our babies in different ways; I'm famous for swanning off and leaving mine with their long suffering mother without much any warning, I've never been very good with calendars, every year I diligently start a planner in January and by February it's lost and we're back to "By the way we're gigging this weekend... in Belgium!" 

The drummer, whose son is as old as the band, is the opposite of me, he's incredibly good with calendars, I can message him in January with a gig offer in August and he already knows whether he is free or not. His reply is instant, almost before I've even sent the dam message; PING! "I'm not free it's my weekend with the boy". Occasionally the gig offer is a good one (we do get a few!) and so instead of running the gauntlet of changing childcare, he will simply bring the boy along. Archer has sat through half a dozen Odd Folk gigs, sometimes even up on stage next his dad, and he once joined in on the hi-hat.

The piano player, the only regular to not have children, is the complete opposite of the drummer. He's even worse than me with calendars. I don't think he even knows what one is. If I message him in January with a gig offer in August he will look at me like I am completely insane. February, still insane. March, April, May, totally flummoxed. June, July; "when!?" Even the beginning of August is hard for him to comprehend. By the middle of the month you might see his head tilt as he contemplates a gig in a weeks time. 3 days before and you've finally got him. We're in the moment now. This is where he lives. He's engaged. And then he turns up a day early.

The bass player thankfully knows his way around a calendar and has invented a method to help us choose gigs, The 3 P's; PROFILE, PROFIT and PLEASURE. As long as you get two of them you're alright. If you get all three, fuck, you do the gig at all costs, you take the kids with you if you have to, bring grandma too. We don't often get all three though. Getting two is hard enough. Mostly we just get one, and it's nearly always for profile, or "exposure" as they call it! "People die of exposure!" says the drummer. We've stopped chasing that avenue so much these days, ever since we did The Great British Bake Off Finale for no money, taking two days out off work and kids and driving to a secret location in the arse end of nowhere - so secret I can't even remember where it was - only to get unceremoniously dumped onto the cutting room floor. I think you saw a flash of the bass players red hair for a millisecond, not quite the "exposure" we'd all signed up for. Although we did sell a CD to Mel and Sue, I wonder if they ever played it?

The guitar player; the founder and leader for half of our life, had his first child and lost his footing, starting missing a few gigs here and there, had his second and promptly left the band.

The accordion player, who himself is a replacement for the guitar player, is now about to join the father's club and the jury's out on how he will juggle music and children. Although he is pretty good with a calendar and could rival the drummer in a punctuality contest at least. 

10 babies in 10 years. I can't stop saying it. I can't believe it hasn't been picked up by the press. Surely if we can't make it with our music, we can make it with our stories. This is 'How NOT to be in a Band' - have loads of kids, loose your calendar and die of exposure.

On a serious note with every new addition there is a small part of me that sinks a little further into my seat, in a purely selfish sense perhaps, like I know how hungry I still am, and I can only hope my bandmates keep a stomach for it too. Having lost one of them to the pitter patter of tiny feet; once bitten twice shy and all that.

But mostly kids have bought us immense joy, at being able to share our music with them, write songs for them, take them to festivals and wheel them round in barrows, like we were all those years ago. Watching their faces look up in awe as we take to the stage and feel that heady mixture of pride and embarrassment that this is their dad. Watching them mimic us with tennis rackets as guitars, dancing around in an imaginary world of sound. As much as kids have bought a joy to our music, so music has bought a joy to our kids.

And who knows, now they outnumber us, perhaps someday they'll take over from us too, when we finally become The Old Folk ;)

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That time that we nearly died

 

It was -13, the light was gone and we'd broken down in a snow drift in the middle of the Swedish tundra. We were miles from civilisation, there were no houses anywhere and we hadn't seen another car for over an hour. The snow was knee deep, more in the forest, some drifts could eat you whole. Our road had been entirely swallowed up; it was, at best, a memory. We had no phone signal and nobody knew where we were. We sat in the car shivering, preserving the fuel that we'd use up to keep us alive overnight. And then what? Temperatures would be well below freezing the following day. And the following night we'd probably be dead. It was a hopeless situation and not one of the one's we revel in either, this wasn't some jolly mishap we'd all laugh about in the pub; like arriving at a gig without our instruments. This was life and death. The Odd Folk? The Dead Folk more like.

But how on earth did we find ourselves in this desperate place you may ask? And why on earth are we recounting it now?

This blog was always going to be a bit different; after a year without both anecdote or adventure, we've now turned to you for questions and Heidi Claes' what's the most dangerous situation you've been in? really struck a chord. And here it is...

... We'd flown to Sweden, the bass player, the guitar payer and I; one of those stupidly early morning flights that seem a good idea at the time cause they're so much cheaper.

We arrived in Ostersund; a small town in the middle of Sweden. My aunty, who's made her home here, picked us up from the airport and drove us to her farm. We promptly went to bed because we'd been up since stupid o clock and the whole first day was a right off. Should have paid the extra £50 and left at a logical time. 

We'd come to Sweden to go skiing, believe it or not the band are actually avid skiers; the drummer would have joined too if he could get the time off work, and the piano player if he could afford it. It's not an image you associate with us, but myself and the bass player set off annually to throw ourselves down mountains, I find it the most liberating thing. It has quite overwhelmed me in recent years, the hunger to satisfy that itch. It's the first holiday I look for, which hasn't always gone down too well with the family. Probably because I often book it at the last minute and announce the news shortly before we leave. 

"By the way we're thinking of going skiing?" 

"Thinking? Or going?"

"Going"

"When?"

"This month, maybe"

"Have you already booked it?"

"Yeah"

"You know we're having a baby this month!" 

"I'll be home before that, we're going in a couple of days!"

So off we went. We borrowed my aunties car, piling our bags and instruments into the boot and setting off to Åre; Sweden's premier winter resort. We were to spend a couple of nights in ski city and then drive further into the wilderness to my aunty's old cabin with no electricity or water where we'd 'survive' and get inspired to make music. That was the plan, and the challenge of returning to the isolated hut on the hill at Kamsåsen had been calling to us ever since we'd discovered it two winters previous.

But first we had some serious skiing to do! We spent the days throwing ourselves down the mountain and the nights spending too much time and money in the fancy bars and revelling in some of our jolliest mishaps.

On the second day the bass player dislocated his shoulder.

On the third day, we left. After skiing we had a quick sauna, packed the car, stole a game of Risk from the apartment and headed north into the wilderness. It was 5pm, the drive would take two hours, we knew the road well but for some reason we checked the satnav and found a quicker route that cut out half an hour and stupidly we took it.

... we headed north into the wilderness ...

There were two warnings on the way but we ignored them both. The first happened when we turned off the main road onto an unploughed road but for some reason instead of serving as a wake up call, it only seemed to make us more excited. 

A little further along and the road narrowed and the snow deepened. This time we actually stopped the car to investigate. We had snow tyres, it didn't seem too deep plus the satnav said we weren't far away and we were going downhill. "I think we'll be fine" we encouraged each other, but this was our get out of jail card and I think one of us even suggested it. But instead we ploughed on, quite literally. But the snow got deeper, and the road got narrower and the car went slower and slower until that moment that we all dreaded, when it ground to a halt. 

Outside it was deathly silent and the realisation of just how isolated we were hit home, especially when the guitar player climbed the ladder of a nearby hunters lookout to scan the landscape. "It's bleak" he called down. Our options were limited. We either stay put or continue on foot, according to the satnav we were 8 miles away. "We could walk it in two hours!" I chanced. And for a while that really seemed like an option. Myself and the guitar player even started packing bags. But the bass player wasn't keen. "I don't think we should leave the vehicle, it's our only guarantee of surviving the night!" he reasoned. "How about we push the car!?" said the guitar player. 

And so for the next hour we took it in turns; one at the wheel and the other two pushing. Progress was painfully slow but we were edging along. Until the road started to climb again and the metres we'd gain got smaller and smaller while our breathers got longer and longer. We pushed and panted and slipped and skidded in a monotonous fever, like some abstract contemporary dance company, like three men pushing a car uphill for three miles in the snow. "There's a junction ahead and it's a ploughed road!" shouted the bass player and we all jumped for joy. But like every good disaster story there's always a catch. And this was that glimmer of hope that was snatched away all too quickly. The junction was ploughed, and we could see safety, it was right there, 6 feet away, no more. The only problem was the snow drift in the way; a wall of frozen ice, like a large fridge/freezer on its side cutting us off. 

The next hour we worked in a frenzy, scrambling through the snow like beavers, smashing it with whatever we could find; rocks, sticks, shoes, we even used our skis. Chipping away at this never ending ice block. It was like trying to sand something with toilet paper. The impossible job. And i've lost count of the amount of times we tried the push the car over it. Watching the wheels spin around like a carousel.

And then suddenly lights ahead. A car, maybe. Approaching. We were like Robinson Crusoe seeing a ship in the distance. We ran up the road towards it waving our arms around like lunatics trying to flag it down. Like it had an option! God only knows what the old lady thought when she found us. We talked English. She talked only Swedish, and so we ended up doing a theatre show with our hands, gesticulating wildly like mad directors. We spent an hour with the lady. She had a rope in her boot, she tried to pull us through the drift twice but then the rope snapped and that was that. Defeated, we let her go. She didn't even have a phone. Our theatre show was over. We were alone again in the silence.

"It's cause you stole that game of risk!" said the guitar player. "This is karma"

That spurred me on, I wasn't spending the night in the car and hoping the old lady would think of driving back this way in the morning. We were getting through this even if we worked all night. I sprang back to life; chiselling away at the drift with a CD case; I didn't even have gloves on, or a coat, I was sweating in -13.

As it happened it didn't take much longer. I suddenly remembered that hessian sacks are good for gripping. Course we didn't have any of those but we had towels and after shredding a couple we finally got enough grip on our jumpers to launch ourselves over the drift. We collapsed on the road like sprinters at the end of a marathon.

But like all good disaster stories there's always another twist. We followed the Satnav those final five miles until it ended. Just like that. In the middle of the road. In the middle of nowhere. "You have reached your destination" said the voice. And our destination didn't exist. Realisation is almost more frightening than being in the thick of it. When you're in it, you're just focused on getting out. Adrenaline almost blindsides you and it can warp your thinking. If we had abandoned our car and attempted to walk to the hut, we may just have made it there but I doubt we'd have made it back. And that really scared us. We were silent as we pulled away. Shellshocked. Our only option was to set a course to my aunties farm, two hours south, the fuel was low but we'd make it. On the way after half an hour or so the bass player suddenly piped up from the back, "Hold up" he said, "That's the turning! That's the road up to the cabin!" And it was. We'd finally found it, 20 odd miles from where we'd broke down. We'd been nowhere near. "I'm never using a satnav again" I said.

We arrived at the cabin at midnight. Trying to save us half an hour had actually cost us 5 hours and almost lost us our lives. We had to dig a path to get the door, the snow was waist deep up here. We bundled in and spent an hour lighting both fires to warm the place up, it was freezing now. Almost colder indoors. The place had been empty for months. The bedding was frozen. We had to hang it all up to thaw it out. We lit the candles and opened the wine. All talking at the same time. All telling the same story. Reliving it like it was a jolly old mishap. But deep down we knew it was wasn't. We were very lucky. 

"I think we'd better play that game of risk!" said the guitar player with a wink.  

 

Sugar Baked Gammon

Hoi / Grüß Gott / Hola / Dobar Dan / God Dag / Hyvää Päivää / Bonjour / Guten Tag / Jo Napot / Góðan Dag / Salve / Moïen / Hallo / Olá / Zdravo / Ahoj / Hallå / Helo / Zdravo / Živjo…

 

Hi, it’s the Drummer here and I’ve been drafted in to discuss the single most important issue to affect us since our inception; and no it's not The Piano player moving to Portugal, it's the future of touring and gigging in the European Union/Schengen area.

I’ll attempt to dive straight into the detail here because as The Singer always tells us, “no more than 2000 words or they’ll get bored”; so here we go with a tricky game of word Tetris. As this topic is as long as it is broad and likely to cover more than one blog, I’ll try and dispense with some of the usual waffle and get down to business. So grab a strong drink and/or fat smoke of your choice and settle in for a hard hitter! The gloves are off and I’m up for a rumble! Today I’m going to deal with facts, emotions and the shambolic ‘fag packet deal’ that is the UK government’s Brexit agreement; otherwise known as 2800 lines of utter bullshit.

 

I’m writing this on international soundcheck day (12.1.21) which somehow seems a little bit ironic (don’t you think?) considering we haven’t had one of those in a while. 

I’d like to briefly take you back to September 2013. That’s when I joined the band and as mentioned in my last blog, also coincided with the band’s first ever tour; which was also the inspiration for our subsequent forays into mainland Europe. It’s been discussed numerous times by The Singer that it’s these very tours that have kept us all going over the last few years; they're the filling in the sandwich, the cement in The Odd Folk retaining wall. The band would have likely folded many moons ago if it wasn’t for these regular adventures, and our lives certainly wouldn’t have been as enriched without meeting and playing for all our lovely friends and fans across Europe. It’s safe to say it’s what has kept us all going; and we want to KEEP it going!

June 23^rd 2016 will be forever etched into our memories. It was the day that most performers (and crew), who rely on European tours to make a living and remain sane, realised that those days were possibly numbered. We shouted it from the roof tops, we splurged it all over social media, we were angry; but most of all we were scared of the change and the unknown. Not because we’re afraid of change or risk averse; we’re touring musicians; we thrive on those things. But we were scared for our livelihoods and we wanted to tell everyone who had voted to remove our European citizenship and our right to roam, what a huge mistake we thought they’d made; and as far as we were concerned they must have been crazy (right?).

Then they responded. We were told to keep calm and look forward to getting our freedom back, we were informed that nothing would change for us and not to worry. We were lectured that the EU needs us more than we need them, we’d get our sovereignty back, Boris would do the right thing and get us out; and we’d all be better off. Not one of them had any evidence of this of course, just blind faith in those purveyors of a false narrative that would only benefit those who were set to make a killing from the subsequent financial chaos. Some of us were born in the EU; in fact all the band members (even me) were born European citizens; and we were angry about be dragged out of something we hold dear, and still are. After all no one wants their citizenship stripped away from them against their will do they?

We were informed by those gloating, red faced “experts” that we should suck it up, stop (re)moaning and develop a British stiff upper lip like our ancestors and tap into the (long dead and thankfully extinct) Imperial spirit of old; mend and make do.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BEATLES DID?”

“HAMBURG… THE BEATLES WENT TO HAMBURG YOU KNOW!”

“BANDS TOURED IN EUROPE BEFORE THE EU EXISTED; IT’S EASY, YOU JUST GO AND PLAY!” they gammon-splained at us in capital letters over social media, so it must be easy right?

I’ve even lost old friends over this! It’s amazing how many people who have never played in a band or toured Europe or organised these trips are suddenly experts in the subject. The week before they only knew how to drink 10 pints of Carling every night on a weekend and fight at football matches; yet NOW they were fully clued up on performing artists touring Europe! Well, they used to go to Glasto in the 90’s and they saw Oasis play at Knebworth, so they’re experts right?

The worst of it is, I know musicians who have toured all over Europe who also voted to leave. It seems they had taken a huge dump in their own wallets but didn’t even realise it yet!

Aaaaaaaaan...... breeeeeath 

So back to the present day. It’s happened, we no longer have free movement to go swanning off around the EU without a care like we owned the place. Now we’re potential illegal aliens in the lands of our birthright. That is if we follow the advice from our suddenly ‘oh so quiet’ Brexiter expert ex-friends. We now need to work out what “The Deal” means for us. Time to try and get past the frustration and conjecture and stop “re-moaning”.

Ping! It’s the Singer on WhatsApp. “Hello old boy, how’s the blog coming along, angry yet? Have you worked out how we’re going to continue touring in Europe on a shoestring?” I tell him his timing is impeccable and that I’ve just about calmed down, I'm 1007 words in and just about to dive into the detail and quit whinging. He sends me a laughing emoji and that’s the end of our exchange.

 

But how DO we do this? It’s one thing foaming at the keyboard on social media, it’s another thing altogether working it out. It’s a minefield. Luckily there are some organisations, colleagues and old friends who have been putting in long hours on everyone else’s behalf. Our ex-agent from Frusion is one of them, Ian Smith and some of his peers have been working hard to find out all they can and are sharing it all via their website (http://ukeartswork.info) and YouTube channel. These gals and guys are providing regular updates for things like work permits and carnets, not only for the likes of us to go over to the EU and work; but those bloody Europeans to come over ‘ere and steal our…. Oops, that was last nights’ gammon pie repeating on me.

The point is, there are lots of people now trying to rise above the situation and help their fellow performers. This isn’t just about musicians either, it’s all artists, crew, drivers and road management involved in performing arts, we’re all in this together. The truth is that if we don’t all pull together and try to make this work then it won’t just be our lives that are bereft of any cultural diversity; UK festivals, Circus shows, theatres and arts centres will become stagnant and constrained.

There’s another online resource attempting to share as much info as possible too, www.ism.org are doing their bit. But it’s not quite enough at the moment because it’s all still very fresh and raw. I recently discovered that a lawyer friend just happens to work in this field and has offered to assist; and from what they tell me there is a lot of conflicting info out there and we somehow have to piece it all together and come up with a plan.

We, the Singer and I, are not the only ones struggling with this debacle; most of our peers are also in the same situation. Our good friend Billy from The Undercover Hippy has set up a Facebook group for us all to share our findings, which is great, but it still feels like we are all fumbling in the dark like naïve teenagers on the back row of the cinema.

So, what have I learnt so far from my research over the last month? I know now that if we are ever to dare to dip our skanky toes into the waters of touring the EU, we will definitely need to change our approach and accept it’s going to be harder to plan and the costs and bureaucracy could limit our ability to do this going forward; which is an upsetting realisation.

Firstly, we do know that we’ll have to purchase a carnet; a list of ALL equipment including our instruments, PA, strings, drumsticks, tuners, in fact anything that we use. Which, in a band of 5 people who play about 15 instruments between them is likely to be a long and difficult list to manage. This document costs approximately £450 and if we change a single item, then we have re-submit that change and pay another £450. For us this means that if The Piano Player sneaks an unapproved Ukulele into the back of the van it could end the tour before it’s begun. We could get to the French border and be turned around. Game over.

We also need to be aware of the materials our instruments are made of; if there are any rare woods or ivory included in the build of our instruments we could be barred from entry. Then there’s the working visa requirements for each individual country in the EU; because as it turns out, each EU country has sovereignty over their borders. Shall we all just let that sink in for a moment?

Some of our European neighbours are graciously offering dispensation meaning free access, but it’s not yet fully clear under which circumstances that will apply. Potentially we could have to have work permits for each country at a cost of 75-99€ per person, per country! So if those costs haven’t made it impossible, we also have the issue of differing tax rates and those having to be submitted and dealt with through HMRC, which we all know will be a simple and hassle-free process.

Then there’s the real killer; merchandise. We’ll need to declare all merchandise in advance and pay VAT on every item (before it’s sold) and then reconcile that upon our return. We normally rely on merch sales to get us from gig to gig and that’s looking like a tricky hurdle to get over. There is still so much to learn, which is why this blog will be in at least one more instalment as more knowledge is gained; but at this rate it seems we’re going to need to employ an accountant and legal advisor; or just accept the fact that it’s now become an impossible endeavour, uneconomical and we’re resigned to a future of playing for peanuts in the UK where no one buys merch. Or we retire with our memories and look for other ways to fulfil our artistic needs.