The Spider And The Bee

For the full dreadful affair, click below!
The Spider And The Bee - Crayola Lectern

William D Drake + Crayola Lectern @ Komedia

Yes, that's correct folks. William D Drake and Jon Poole performing some choice Cardiacs tunes together towards the end of Bill's set. These things don't happen every day.
Dive into the pond and see what some of those Cardiacs people had to say...

Music From Beyond The Veil

Sometimes when I extemporize on the piano it feels like it is playing itself. My own ideas seem to become subsumed by something outside of myself as the overtones contrive to blend into new harmonic shapes. I have occasionally likened this feeling to that of singing ghosts whose essences reside in the old piano in this 106 year old room, built on the site of a windmill which existed here all the way back to the times of the Domesday book.
So it was a great moment today when I got in the car to drive to the cashpoint to check my bank balance (£12.73 available - this wasn't the great moment) when on Radio 4 was this wonderful programme, Music From Beyond The Veil.
Particularly interesting for me is from 19 minutes in, Keith Howard from SOAS's description of the use of cymbals in Nepali tribes to communicate with the spirit world via the overtones produced which create what he describes as "the murmuring of spirits," with very specific drum patterns for different forms of communication with different spirits in the ritual - this tallying somewhat with my own (less considered, lazier and unlikely to many, I'm sure) intuitive 'belief' in accessing spirits via the upper partials on the piano here at home.
Towards the end of the programme, it was great to hear Dr Peter Fenwick talking about music being heard during near death experiences. I met Dr Fenwick a few times in 1987 as I was involved in testing a dream machine he was setting up to provoke lucid dreaming, but that's another story....

Listen to the programme here on BBC's iPlayer gizmo.

Worthing's Waldberg Baby Grand

Here's a pic I scanned from the local paper last year as I read with growing interest of the renovations afoot at St Paul's in Worthing. Indeed this place is now another great thing for Worthing, creating opportunities for the arts and music as well as making it all the more agreeable to those musically-inclined café frequenters with an interest in history and architecture (such as, well, me). This newly revived St Paul’s church, now a community centre and arts space exists thanks to tireless fundraising and determination from a group of dedicated people for whom building restoration and future of the community is important. I had the good fortune to wander inside this beautiful old landmark building yesterday and enjoy a splendid nosh up from the award-winning Lime café therein.
Also, it must be noted, there in front of me upon the altar stage was standing a Waldberg baby grand piano with a little note inviting any passing pianists to get up and have a go. Of course it would be churlish to pass up such an invitation, so after my food I stepped up and played a couple of pieces as befitted the general aura of tranquil sophistication and post-reverential awe such buildings were designed to provoke. There’s also a nice sounding Welmar upright – the same model as in my parents’ house – standing next to the stage.
So anyway, a beautiful piano in a beautiful space. In Worthing! Things really are looking up here.

Worthing Beach Piano

Great to see another example of public piano positioning going on in my own neck of the woods. Pity I only just found out about it though - I'd have enjoyed a little tinkle on the beach as it were... There are even claims that it's the first beach piano in the UK. Thanks to musician Andrew Walker for getting it together, having been inspired for the idea by a similar outdoor piano scheme in East London.
Stuff like this re-asserts my faith in Worthing. The town seems to be changing a lot these days as people (like myself) from Brighton have kids and realise they can't afford that extra bedroom and garden in their favourite seaside "city," and so file over to Worthing to settle, it being so close. So maybe I will get round to organising that all-dayer psychedelic music festival at the Lido of which I've been dreaming for a while now after all.

White Night 2009

I’m no good at going out on my own.
My pal Rona emailed, telling me about an animation she has made to be projected up on the front facade of the Unitarian Church in the North Laine area of Brighton to be sound-tracked by some of our La Mômo music as part of the White Night Festival. I thought – sounds very interesting - and I checked the website which made mention of PIANOS POSITIONED RANDOMLY AROUND THE STREETS OF BRIGHTON upon which passers-by were tacitly invited to play. I felt a rush of blood. Was it anger at not being the first to know? Was it a flutter of delight at being able to participate in such an event? Well, both.
So after a gruelling shift at the care home at 9pm I headed over to have a go. There were lots of people filling the streets with all sorts of weird and wonderful things going on but I was on a mission to find and play these pianos.
First one I found was a black grand outside the Pavilion with a couple playing a Satie Gymnopedie. Nice tone, pleasing, calming. Nice start. Quite a few people gathered around as I lurked unconfidently behind a Doric pillar out of sight.
“Nope,” thought I, “I’m not playing that one yet, I need to find a more humble instrument.” Over the road outside Laura Ashley was just the one but it was being tinkled with by another couple so I sauntered back up to Jubilee gardens where an Aeolian Pianetta stood with a girl playing Debussy’s Arabesque in E (very nicely) with an appreciative audience hovering.
I was starting to feel more nervous and awkward, wondering why I had come along at all so I wandered into the theatre bar and downed a pint before gingerly approaching the (now thankfully abandoned) Aeolian. I sat down and started playing and was aware of people starting to group behind me. What I played felt weak – one of my own – my hands were shaking even worse than normal and after my 4 minute number I disappeared off into the night – one guy said something nice as I left and I think he knew how I felt.
I walked back down to the mini piano outside Laura Ashley, jamming my knees under it as it was so small it did feel suitably humble, a little out of tune which was actually quite nice in a way. I played two of my tunes on it, had a little applause from the people who stopped by and chatted to a be-trilbied pianophile called Rob who looked exactly like I did when I was his age. Most peculiar. He told me of the slightly broken seafront piano without pedals but which made you play like Tom Waits – so I had to go there.
I sauntered through the crowds of scantily clad teens teeming in and out of the clubs of West Street and headed towards the piano outside a seafront burger stall and sat there in the moonlight playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as the traffic rushed past and people played cheeky notes as they walked by. I had a go at some Neil Young too. The guys in the burger stall smiled at me through the window.
Back in the North Laine I went back on to the Aeolian and managed to get a decent performance out of it this time before heading back to the grand by the Royal Pavilion. Just as I went to play it a guy dived in front of me and started doing a speed version of something-very-famous-by-Beethoven before doing boogie-woogie versions of Oasis songs (at the crowd’s request) – I had an internal hissy fit, deciding not to play this piano as everyone just seemed to want to be entertained (how dare they) so I headed back past the Waggon and Horses where another honky tonker entertained more drunk people on another piano. All this boogie woogie and honky tonk was too much for me so I buggered off back home.
Looking back on the evening it is good to know that pianos are always pounced upon by anyone who has ever contrived to play a tune on one. They’re quite irresistible.
Great idea to do this – I’d really like to go to White Night’s sister festival in Amiens, France. Maybe there’ll be less boogie woogie over there and more melanchodelia.

Fiery Foods Festival, Brighton

Much goodness today seeing Bill Drake with James Larcombe playing more wondrous songs in Victoria Gardens near the Old Steine in Brighton, scene of the small but lovely Fiery Foods Festival on what must have been one of the most beautiful days of the Summer. New song and set opener, Ziegler was just fabulous - and a fitting start to another fun-packed set with more familiar and unfamiliar material. The kids loved it too - great how the music is so accessible to really young minds too. And being surrounded by so many smiling faces and exotic foody smells at the same time just made it all the more pleasurable. I don't think the William D Drake set was advertised as such so we felt oddly privileged to be there.
Plenty for the children to do too and a bar tent which I unusually didn't go into, probably as young master Lectern was running around everywhere and I couldn't let my eye off him for long in case I lost him in the crowd.