Mill Hill Music Festival Diary - Day 7 - The Bateman Brothers tribute to Louis Armstrong

It's Saturday morning, we are into the home straight. One more gig to go. Last night was day seven of the Mill Hill Music Festival. We had the Bateman Brothers tribute to Louis Armstrong at Allianz Park, home of the Saracens.

The gig was a bit of a luxury for those of us in the crew. One advantage of doing three nights at a venue, we didn't have to break down the gear on Thursday night, or set it up again. The PA was all set, we just needed to mic up the instruments and off we went. A process that can take three or four hours was done in an hour.

I arrived around 5pm. My festival colleagues had arrived earlier, to ensure everything was ready. The Band started to drift in around 6pm. For once we were done and dusted with the soundcheck with a fair old time to spare. One thing we've noticed this year is that people have been far less willing to book early. In previous years, most events sold out well in advance. This time only the Opera had actully sold out. As Allianz Park is a large venue, we didn't expect to sell out quickly, but the tickets had been slow. What had happened though was that a far greater number of people than usual turned up on the night.

As to the actual gig, it was a fantastic show. The band work extremely hard to bring the music of the great man to life. They have a fantastic singer in Maggie Reeday, who gave a stunning performance. My personal favourite was Blue Skies. This was my Dad's favourite song, my Dad would always sing it when it rained and hearing it again brought a tear to my eye. From a sound perspective, large Jazz bands can be challenging. Instruments such as clarinets can get a little lost in the wall of sound. Fortunately the Allianz Park venue has decent acoustic properties and we managed to get an excellent sound.

The band were well received by the audience as was the fish & chips, provided by Allianz Park. The show finished just before 11pm, and again we had the luxury of an easy breakdown of gear. Rather than de-rig the whole show, we simply powered down and took the microphones down.

Tonight we have the final night of the festival. This is the Polecats and Loaded Dice. It is a gig I've been looking forward to since we booked it. It's the first time the Polecats have played in their hometown of Mill Hill for 35 years. I was at the last one, in St Pauls Church Hall. Shortly after that, the Band had a top ten hit with "John I'm only dancing" and they have all been professional musicians ever since. Boz, Tim and Phil have been mates of mine since school, and were the very first paying customers of my studios when they opened in 1979. We also have a rock and roll disco tonight, so it will be a great chance to get down and have a boogie. If you've never been to see a rockabilly shindig, it's a hoot. Come one down.

A few interesting customers of Mill Hill Music Complex

Guess what. I've just started a new blog. I'm sure that many people in Barnet will be think "Hasn't he got anything better to do with his time?". Well this new blog is all about what I do with my time, when I'm not banging on here. I've launched a blog for my business - Mill Hill Music Complex. We get so many interesting characters passing through that I thought it would be a great forum for keeping track of what is happening.

Anyway, here's the latest entry -

http://millhillmusiccomplex.blogspot.com/2010/05/few-interesting-customers-of-mill-hill.html

Hope you enjoy it.

The Prime Minister is in Burnt Oak

For a pleb, I'm rather lucky. I've met two Prime Ministers out on the campaign trail!

Only one was actually Prime Minister, my meeting with Lady Thatcher in 1974 (documented elsewhere in this blog) walking home from School occurred when she was merely MP for Finchley.

The other meeting occurred in 1979. James Callaghan was Prime Minister and he was on the campaign trail. I was pondering this visit and how times have changed. At the time, Hendon North was a safe Tory seat, with John Gorst as MP (would Brown bother with a safe Tory seat today). There are many parallels between 1979 and today. Callaghan and Brown were both not elected, they took over from people who had won three elections each (Wilson and Blair). They had both been involved in Labour governments which had huge fiscal crises (IMF Bailout and the Credit Crunch). They had both been viewed as good chancellors by the nation. They both were accident prone  (Callaghan "Crisis, what crisis?". Brown - Bigotgate).

Having said that, there are differences. Callaghan was generally liked in the country. He wasn't seen as the problem. Most people preferred Callaghan to Thatcher personally at the time. He was a warm character, often called "Sunny Jim". They were just sick of the Labour government. The Liberals were seen as a minor irrelevence. They were expecting to get a dozen or so MP's and their only real hope of power was to hold the balance of power and force the introduction of PR, propping up a minority government. Today the Lib Dems are poised to get the largest number of seats since the second world war. Whilst Thatcher was a hard right Tory with a clear agenda and presented a clear change from Callaghans government, nobody really seems to know what David Cameron stands for (least of all himself).

Anyway, I was in the sixth form common room at Orange Hill Senior High School when someone said "Jim Callaghan is visiting the Labour hall in Burnt Oak to make a speech at midday". Myself, Boz Boorer, Phil Bloomberg and a few others immediately trudged off down. It's fair to say that some of us were more motivated by a desire to get on telly than any deeply held political views. As it turned out, the Prime Minister turned up an hour late. He was given a raptuous ovation for five minutes, then said "thanks for your support. I can tell you that we are going to win" and then left again. Outside a line of dignitaries was formed to shake hands, but we all pushed in front. The Prime Minister said as he shook hands "Thanks for all your hard work". I replied "my pleasure". We were given a roll of Labour stickers, which we went out and plastered the common room with. Phil Bloomberg then suggested we go out canvassing. We made our way up to the Stonegrove Estate and the first door Phil knocked on, when asked if he was voting Labour, replied "No mate, I'm National Front". At this Phil punched him in the face. A year or so later I was in a pub in Dean Street, The Sound and Vision, that had a video jukebox - probably the first in the country. They had "John, I'm only dancing" by the Polecats on - the band in which Phil Bloomberg played bass. As they were mates, I played the track. One of my mates, who was in a hard core, very political punk band said "Why are you playing this. I can't stand this sort of music". I relayed the Phil Bloomberg canvassing story and he said "Sorry mate, I stand corrected".

Times change.  I'm pleased to say that I've not resorted to such measures in my campaign for the Lib Dems.

An evening with a Heretic

As I don't pay for the ESPN football coverage and as my team, Manchester City were playing Blackburn last night, I decided to take a trip down to my local to watch the match. The economics are quite simple. I could pay X to watch the game at home, or I could pay a lesser amount for a couple of pints of beer and watch it in the pub. Not a difficult choice.

On entering my local - The Bridge Tavern - I was rather surprised to see a group of my old Schoolmates from my days at Orange Hill. I left Orange Hill in 1981, so it is quite interesting to see how various people had weathered. I was shocked to see one guy, Russell. He looks at least 20 years younger than the rest of us. I don't think I've seen him since I left school. I was just about to ask him how he was and comment on his youthful look, when he started to tell me of the rotten time he's had. He was the victim of an industrial back injury and for several months couldn't walk. Over a period of recuperation, he progressed to a zimmer frame, sticks and now he can just about shuffle from his house in Blundell Road to the pub and back.

He told me how, when he first suffered the injury, he went to hospital and they said he was OK. No scan, only a few pain killers. Within a couple of days, he had to summon an ambulance as he couldn't walk and it turned out that a slipped disc had damaged his spinal chord. As well as being unable to walk, things such as going to the toilet and having sex were not possible. Fortunately he's not a down sort of guy and he's making the most of the situation, but as with all of these things he's had a rough time.

He wasn't really keen to dwell on his problems and talk went back to our school days. Russell was in the year below me, in a band called "The Heretics". As you can probably guess,, they were a punk band. In my year, there were three bands of note - The Polecats (who had a couple of top 10 hits and feature Boz Boorer, who is now musical director for Morrissey), The Ron Lewis Partnership (a Dr Feelgood style rythm and blues band) and my band The False Dots (we liked to consider ourselves experimental Punk Rock). Strangely all three of these groups are still functioning in some shape or form. I was amazed to hear Russell tell me last night that he wanted to attend a gig The False Dots played at the school, only to be told by a teacher that he shouldn't listen to us as we didn't play "proper music". There were quite strong links between The False Dots and The Heretics as when Pete Conway left the band, we recruited guitarist Craig Withecombe from them and later the drummer Mark Barnett joined for our 1982 tour of Sweden. Craig was one of the most talented guitarists I've ever known. He took our music to another level and I still listen with awe to the solo he played on "Not all she seems" on the bands second demo. It's fair to say that there was constantly tension between myself and Craig and we never hit it off personally. I actually think this served the band well as a creative force. I'd never let him play the songs he'd composed with the band, which I guess was always a constant source of annoyance to him. He finally split when our singer suggested that he didn't need me to keep the band going. Craig, the singer and the drummer formed a new band, and we recruited mega talented Vanessa Sagoe on vocals and got a new, far superior band on the road.

I've no idea how Craig felt as events transpired, as we parted on a pretty acrimonious note, but I've always wondered whether he got another band together and realised his musical potential. I used to rather arrogantly dismiss him, by saying he was a great guitarist and a rubbish song writer. In retrospect his songs were OK, but we always went for a darker, though slightly more humorous tone.

By an odd coincidence, on the Orange Hill theme, I'd spent the day in the studio with Boz Boorer. I'd asked him to remix a dance track we'd recorded with a great singer we've been working with. I mentioned that Craig was one of the most talented guitarists I've known. Boz takes that prize. He is a musical genius and well deserves the success he's achieved. It was quite funny that as we were talking he told me that he'd put another schoolmate of ours on the guestlist for the recent Morrisey shows in Brixton. He said that he'd received a text and to quote Boz "Perkins said he weren't coming because he couldn't be bothered". Many people would die for a guest pass to see Morrisey, but Boz found it hilarious that Perkins was so blunt. He said that usually people just make a lame excuse and don't show. Perkins was one of the assembled crowd at the pub last night and we discussed it. He said "Oh yeah, it was raining and I didn't feel like it".

Picture :  The False Dots circa 1980 (L-R - Paul Hircombe Bass, Mark Barnett Drums, Craig Withecombe Guitar, Rog T Guitar) recording a video at Harrow School of Art

The Mill Hill Music Complex Top 10 customers

Today feels like an old fashioned Christmas holiday. The Kids are all off school, we're going tobogoning soon up at Flower Lane park. I love the snow and I love spending time playing with the kids in the snow. Even our Boxer dog is enjoying it !!!

As such, with the extra little bit of time on my hands, I thought I'd compile a little list of my top ten Mill Hill Music Complex studio customers. We have between 500 and 1,000 musicians a week through the door, so here's a pick of some of the most famous and a few notes about them. To qualify for this list you have to have had a chart hit, they are listed in a sort of Chronological order of when their association with us began.

1. The Polecats
2. The Foundations
3. Morrissey
4. The Damned
5. Amy WineHouse
6. Madness
7. Kate Nash
8. Eddie Floyd
9. David Soul
10. The Black Kids

1. The Polecats
Our very first paying customers back in 1979. Boz and Phil were at Orange Hill School with me and they needed a place to rehearse. Still good mates with them all.


2. The Foundations
Alan Warner is an old friend. We recorded our first few demo's in his studio (as did the Polecats!). A great guy and a great band.


3. Morrissey
As Boz Boorer is Moz musical director, much pre production of various albums has been done with us. A true genius.


4. The Damned
As I'm a punk rocker and the Damned released the very first Punk single "New Rose", it was a real buzz to hear this blasting out of room 7. Nice guys


5. Amy WineHouse
Amy rehearsed with us for the year or so before she went big time. She's lovely. When she received her first big cheque from the record company, she marched into the shop and said "wrap that blue guitar up for me" When we asked if she wanted to try it, she said "No I trust you" - three weeks later she was playing it on Top of the Pops.


6. Madness
Lee Thompson is a long standing customer and a great guy. He did a charity gig for me last year, where we raised £3,000 for the MacMillan Trust and Teenage Cancer Trust. Threw his heart and soul into it and sorted out the venue.


7. Kate Nash
Kate is very special. Her dad Steve is a good mate of mine and we sold Kate her first Electric guitar, when she had a broken leg. She still comes down. She's down to earth, looks after her friends and loves her family. She was in the reception chatting to me about her dad's bad leg before Xmas. When she went back to the rehearsal another customer remarked "She looks just like Kate Nash". No airs and graces at all !!!


8. Eddie Floyd
Flew in from the States, had a three hour jam with his band and then immediately set off on a 21 date UK tour. It was great to hear "Knock on Wood" blasting out. Nice guy.


9. David Soul
David came down to a rehearsal with his girlfriends band, who he was doing some singing with. Posed for pictures with all sorts of people. A real gent. Of all our customers, he's the one who EVERYONE instantly recognises.


10. The Black Kids
Flew in from the states and rehearsed with us for two weeks before their first UK tour. A nice bunch. It was great seeing them on the Jonathan Ross Show the day after their slot finished.


Not a bad little list. A good smattering of world wide hits, Brit awards etc. Some days I enjoy going to work !!!!!