Happy Flu Year

It’s the end of 2010, its 10pm and a thoroughly annoying dog has been barking all evening, quite possibly the owners reckon it’s a suitable night for pooch to be entertained by the fireworks.

If that’s not enough there is no football in the blue half of Sheffield tomorrow, the boiler keeps breaking and I’ve contracted Gastro-Flu.

Tis a cheeky little strain and one I wouldn’t wish on anyone. If you’ve had it, you know how it is, in bed, maaad dreams, bad guts, blah, blah, blah. My Freezer is full of Andrex soft quilt and the bathroom now houses a small, stacked library. Its not recommend as a weight loss programme, but it seems to be working.

New Years Eve. The end of one year and time for reflection before the rushing in of the New. A time for celebration surely?

Well the only thing that’s rushing in at the moment is the water in my toilet. I’m not writing this because I’m ill or cynical in anyway (moi?), I’m writing it because I’m passing time, passing memories and passing…

I’m hoping, of course I stay awake long enough to see Midnight and the New Year In and there’s only so many times you can say Happy New Year on Facebook...

I do have to say though; I can count on the fingers of one hand, the times when New Year Eve was a great night. A good night yes, but I seem to remember all the bad ones than remember the great ones. Like the time…

…no I’m not going there, that would be like the Diary of Baby Jane. I do have one observation though about the use of said Facebook.

I listened to an interview with Paul Weller this week who derided the use of the web for its communication uses as social contact tool. Now I love the bloke and I respect him, but it got me thinking, how much have we been able to say hello to people, write blogs & share pictures in the last 5 years or so quickly, widely and globally.

If you are able to go to a party tonight, good on you have a great time, but to those of us who are left on our own, it’s amazing how easy it is to be able to communicate to friends and family to give our wishes of a Happy New Year. Without infecting them of course…

Sure there are the negatives as much as there are positives with social sites, but I won’t go into those as The Daily Mail cornered that market years ago.

New Year to me has never meant much, its just another day, it’s just the Chronological petrol pump of time clicking over by 10 pence. The fact we all have to put 2011 instead of 2010 when we scribe the date, apart from the odd banking/ contractual/global treaty error – who really cares?

I said at the start I wouldn’t get cynical in this blog. Well after se7ern days off the fags that was never going to happen – but unlike the New Year Resolution gang, my 23^rd December resolution is now kicking in – enjoy your last ciggies tonight you gym bound hero’s.

I for one wish everyone a Great New Year, get well soon lurgy peeps and I hope that 2011 see’s much mirth & merriment…

(Oh and here is a pic of my good self behind the lens after a year of getting some lovely Shots – Thanks to Chris)

Enjoy your Sprouts

This could be a hate fuelled blog/rant about how I hate Christmas Shopping. Loathing every minute of the painstaking process of listening to 70's Christmas songs, buying wrong sized clothes and crap that no one really wants despite their Mona Lisa like indifferent smiles (or enigmatic if you like). Or it could be about the huge amounts of turgid, stodgy food that gets peddled out once a year just because someone, somewhere said we should do so (I blame Charles Dickens and Delia 'lets be avin yer' Smith personally) but no, to be Scrooge like this time of year will not go down well with the Ghost of our Christmas Futures (and I really disliked that, faceless, hooded scary pointy finger guy) so buy a Turkey for Tiny Tim and enjoy a picture of a tree in snow. So Happy Christmas everyone. Enjoy your bad jumpers, paper hats, bad jokes , Cliff Richard songs and of course your sprouts...

A Hoochie Coochie Man’s date with a Kettle Part II

As a progressive rock fan, Blues music wasn’t really on my radar at the time I had my climbing accident. Sitting at home with a pot on my right leg, I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do with the crappy, pillbox red, six-string stratocaster copy sitting in front of me.

It was, in hindsight, a mammoth start of a journey that I still travel with many a twist and turn, but when you pick up a plank for the first time, it’s a daunting prospect plucking & strumming an instrument that immediately sounds like a cat being run over.

Clapton was my starting point, and after many frustrating sessions, I finally mastered Wonderful Tonight and the repetitive throng of the Animals House of the Rising Sun.

In fact, second to climbing, much to my family’s distaste, I found that I could actually play the damn thing without knowing what the hell I was doing. Much like my climbing style of the time.

After a few history lessons from fellow guitarists, I started to get into the Delta, Mississippi and Chicago Blues greats: Freddie King, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Albert King and my favourites, Muddy Walters and Howling Wolf.

The last two artists blew my mind wide open and whilst my peers, friends and girlfriends were embracing the full on indie 1989 scene, I had those 3 chord dirty licks resonating round my bedroom night and day. Suckered in and high on the heart felt lyrics, tones and simply brutal, yet beautiful songs of the masters, I was hooked.

Strangely enough, it was whilst watching the 1984 Tom Cruise film, Risky Business, laid up, pot-legged that led me to discover Muddy Walters and the seminal Mannish Boy. Despite the lovely Rebecca De Mornay’s charming presence, more of interest to me was the high-class hookers party scene, set to Muddy’s raunchy gravel like tones interspersed with that infamous five-note guitar/harmonica combo riff.

Manish Boy starts with simple, thin blues licks from a rare for the time electric guitar, Muddy’s band hollering in the background before that iconic riff kicks in, Muddy claiming he’s a ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’.

Written by Willie Dixon and performed by Walters, Hoochie Coochie Man was a similar five riff that song that gripped me. The Hoochie Coochie was a sexually provocative dance that became wildly popular during and after the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. A Hoochie Coochie Man was a man of dubious virtue that encouraged this bumbing and grinding, often-making money out of the performing girls…the oldest game in the book. That scene in Risky Business with Muddy’s Mannish boy belting out suddenly made sense.

At the time of my accident, the late Jeff Heely, a seminal, wonderful Canadian guitarist, blind from birth, who played his guitar on his lap, covered Hoochie Coochie Man for a lame Patrick Swayze film, Roadhouse.

Despite the naffness of the film, one thing that came of it was that I used it as a soundtrack to learn the song. Soon after the pot came off, I was then invited to join a fairly successful local blues band to perform the number at the Christmas show in my local Village.

My first gig, a month or so after picking up a guitar and I had been asked to play and sing a Muddy Walters number, not just A Muddy Walters number, but maybe THE Muddy number! No pressure then…

First things first – I needed a better guitar. I think I had pretty much broken the loanee Start (a trend that seems to haunt me with guitars to this day) I flogged some climbing gear for much more than I paid for it and bought a cheap Gibson Les Paul copy. Although it sounded like a banjo and was heavy as a pregnant hippo, I procured it on the strength that we eventually managed to make it sound like it was crapping like thunder through a Marshall Amplifier. Good enough.

A week later came the gig. I wasn’t scared or apprehensive, I was absolutely cacking me crackers. The set up was fairly professional I have to say and the crowd was made up of hardened fans of the blues that had seen many an act, first-rate and shocking. I was convinced I would end up the latter genre…

To compound things the leader of the band, Steve, the rhythm guitarist, decided that I would come on fairly late, give me some time to practise and have a few ‘courage sherberts’. Again in the unfortunate series of events; this was in the guise of a few Jack Daniels “get em down ya lad – all the best guitarists drink this…”

I had never touched the stuff and it was vile. Safe to say, I didn’t feel very rock & roll when I tipped up on stage in front of a few hundreds of merry, warmed up punters, more Keith Chegwin than Keith Richards. If the nerves weren’t going to get me, sure as hell the Jack was.

With hindsight, having played a few gigs since, I realised Steve knew his stuff. Go on late and most people are too blotted to soak up any more crap and so just go with the noise in front of them. Thank god. For some reason I had decided to adopt a Paul Rogers one-legged stomp during the performance (a lá Free). My mate asked me after if I needed the toilet.

As it happened I did. The song went down well with the lushed up crowd and I must admit the band carried me, no honest, really… it was all…shucks… thanks…

Oh dear. I then knew the real meaning of stage fright, the churning fear, nervous anticipation, the harsh reality of the moment and the sickening feeling that Mr Daniels had heaped upon me.

For some reason, at the time I thought that as a teenager, having a kettle to make your mates drinks in your bedroom would be cool. No need to go down to the kitchen, having to see the parents and get any grief. I know, a bit of a crap idea.

However the last duty of said kettle was a heroic saving of the mixture of the nights fear and bourbon fuelled events. The ‘comin of the boy child’ wasn’t what it should be – moreover I spectacularly filled its contents with projectile vomit accompanied with that horrid spit, cheek suck, lip-lick smack action.

My introduction to live Chicago Blues, 15 years old, a crap guitar & voice ended in ultimate humiliation. That should be enough to put me off bothering with it all ever again, end of. Not bothered with it all, no blues artist will ever tempt me back playing live...

I got invited back the next week for a small gig to play a B.B. King Song: The Thrill is gone.

Uneducated, ignorant and uninspired I asked…

Bee Bee Who?

A Hoochie Coochie Man’s date with a Kettle

Learning a musical instrument was something I thought would always be beyond me, I had neither the patience, dedication nor skill I had decided after dabbling with the Coronet and Cello at School. However often in life, fate brings together a number of events to provide a catalyst to kick-start something unexpected.

It was 1989 and I had spent the Summer and Autumn learning the ropes and getting to grips (literally) on the Peak District’s gritstone edges and quarries, Rock Climbing. The weather that year had been pretty damn good and I soon took to climbing loads of great routes, steadily getting harder and harder and whilst not being able to climb, outside, getting in some training indoors.

In those days Sheffield had one indoor training facility, or “wall” (it now boasts several) for climbers who wanted to continue to climb when the weather turned bad and the onset of winter meaning no climbing after School.

The ‘Al Rouse’ wall was based at Sheffield Polytechnic in their sports hall and quite frankly it was crap. Made up of two book-ended walls, its featured façade was a blocky brick affair with limited movement and repeated climbing traversing back and forth. It was a dull affair.

Some bright spark then invented removable plastic ‘holds’ that could be fitted to a wall to create and imitate climbs indoors that were more akin to the movement that could be joyously found outside on the natural crags. Sheffield’s first wall to utilise these moulded grips was in the gym at the Y.M.C.A. (it was fun to stay…). Suddenly we had coloured circuits to follow like twister meets dot-to-dot problems, arms & legs were tested and we had challenges to work on our technique, skill and strength. The fact I used to go on a Tuesday night when the girl’s trampoline class took place, in the gym was purely coincidental.

The object of my desires wasn’t just a lithe strawberry blonde bouncing up and down however; it was the new blue circuit consisting of a grand traverse that stretched the length of the gym walls. This was ‘worked’ week upon cold icy week, until finally I tore my head away from the trampolinist tottie and linked it in ‘a oner’. Job done, the beer was earned and it was on to the next challenge.

Now I don’t know about other sports, but in climbers there is always an urge to return to some of their greatest achievements to test themselves again, just to show to your own ego that you have still got it. It’s like the beach cricketing dad that smacks his son’s pee-rollers into the sea just to prove a point that he can but probably couldn’t when he should have, 20 years ago.

One of the unwritten rules of climbing I learned early door was, never go back.

First trip back to the YMCA after my triumph, the girls were flipping & getting some air and I was in a mustard keen mood. Quick warm up and I’ll do the blue circuit because I’ve done it now and it’s in my ability. Well in theory. One ‘stopper’ move saw me on the ground many times and my now swollen ego had summarily kicked this out of my memory as when I reached it everything felt wrong apart that I was trying to be a clever clogs who would be taken down a peg or two when inevitably I fell ten feet onto the hard wooden floor of the gym, landing on my right ankle, my foot 90 degrees to my leg.

Cutting a long story short, after trying to watch the trampolinist's, looking as miserable as myself. hoping the pain would cease (‘young man, pick yourself off the ground’) it was a trip to A&E. We had been at the YMCA all of 10 minutes. Two days in hospital and I returned home on crutches having snapped a ligament, “worse than bone breakage” said the consultant. Great, two weeks off school. Nothing much to pass the time… …until a red top Stratocaster copy guitar was passed over to me…

Pt 2: Muddy Walters & the Kettle...