By Dominic Horton
Like
so many people these days my girlfriend, the lovely Babushka, is snap
happy and is forever taking photographs on her mobile telephone,
which would be better described as a mobile camera in her
case. Incidentally, I am not sure that I am wholly
comfortable with the use of the word “girlfriend” in relation to
middle aged people but I am not sure what word would better take its
place. In my book a partner is someone you are in business with and
ladyfriend makes a relationship sound like two coffin dodgers who
meet for tea and companionship but have a purely platonic
arrangement. “Bird” is a bit too Terry McCann/ Timmy Lea.
Suggestions on a post card please. Or by text via a mobile camera.
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| Kenteke, mid-air. |
Anyway,
the upside of Babushka being quick on the draw to take photographs is
that occasionally she bags a gem of a picture. For
example she recently snapped my dear son Kenteke jumping off the wall
in my back garden, he's mid-air in gay abandon, and it is a magical
image that seems to capture the carefree joyfulness of childhood –
if only it could be bottled, it could then be administered on
prescription to some of the acerbic berks I see down the town centre
whose sole method of communication with their children is barking at
them like an agitated dog. Persons who lose their sense of
childishness are dead people walking.
My
sense of childishness never seems to be too far away but it has been
enhanced recently as I have unwittingly started to play harmonica in
public with other musicians (as a harmonica player I am merely an
accompanist so I pretty much have to play with others – I sound bad
enough hiding behind a guitar or two and percussion without exposing
just me and my instrument. So to speak.) I let the proper musicians
do all of the hard work and I just dip in and out when I feel like
it, which used to be the philosophy of some of my colleagues in my
former life as a banker.
As
a group of musicians (better described as a group of musicians plus
me) we just turn up and see where things lead, we don't rehearse or
plan songs etc., I suppose we jam to use the colloquialism (the word
jam – in this context – doesn't seem to rest easy when used in
reference to white Englishmen, it seems more at home when applied
to Jamaican reggae musicians or bluesman in Chicago. Given
the way we play it would more appropriately be described as
shamming.) Jolly D sings and chips in with guitar, D's brother
Fingers Freddie Fry plays lead, Johnny Toobad plays guitar
and sings vocals too (when he can remember the lyrics), Marky Heat
plays the cajón (drum box) for percussion and Neddy La
Chouffe fiddles with our knobs (in other words he's the sound
man.) Viv Aldi always starts us off with a pleasant
folk-ish set, which we are always grateful for, as the rest of us are
not brave enough to open proceedings.
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| Johnny Toobad at the Flagon & Gorses. |
We
have started to play together by accident really. The Flagon &
Gorses recently began an open mic night and at the first one regular
Flagon inmate Johnny Toobad bought his guitar down but as
he was struggling to remember all the lyrics to songs Jolly D
stepped in on vocals – I drunkenly jumped in on harmonica and that
was the start of it. While we play the child in us is very much
in evidence. We are having fun while being creative and
using our imaginations, to one extent or another, and smiles and
laughter are very much in evidence. When the child in you comes
out for that brief time you are free of the troubles and stresses of
life and just living in the moment. A kind of magic is
created.
When
we are playing in my mind we are every bit as good as The Rolling
Stones but we can't be very good at all as a rolling stone gathers no
moss but we gather no listeners. In fairness the other chaps can play
but as we don't rehearse or meet up in between times the first few
numbers can be a bit of a shambles with feedback on the amp and me
playing harmonica in the wrong key. I am used to striking bum notes
by writing this column but now I am actually doing it musically too.
But we eventually seem to get into our stride, just shortly after the
last customer has left The Flagon & Gorses in disgust.
My
new musical life was actually captured on video by Neddy La Chouffe
when I played an impromptu duo with the wonderful Richard Adey
on accordion at the house of infamy that is The Holly Bush
in Cradley Heath, run by the force of nature that is Davey Duke,
a man of many talents but few morals. Unfortunately by the time I
unexpectedly took the stage with Richard I was on the back end of 8
odd pints of the world class Fixed Wheel pale ale, so
my performance was a little loose to say the least –
thankfully Richard skilfully and tactfully carried me through it.
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| The Spratt, by request of Toby In-Tents. |
My performance with
Richard was not the first time that I had graced the Bush stage as I
acted in play there (Two Men in a Pub) starring alongside
Davey Duke and our friend the lovely Vicki, who are both members of
the arts group that I am involved in, Cradley Heath Creative. Harry
Stottle, who has a vast back catalogue of treading the boards, gave
me a sensible bit of advice for my acting debut – don't drink
before the performance, so I didn't. But every time I looked at
Duke and Vicki during the day they had a pint in there hands so I had
grave concerns come show time. But everything was all right on the
night and we seemed to carry things off at least adequately.
We
decided to buy an 'oss box (a horse box for those of you not familiar
with Black Country dialect) for Cradley Heath Creative, as a
portable performance space. We got it on the cheap for a
few hundred sovs as it is ancient and needs a bit of work doing to
it. Some people realise a dream of being part owner of a race horse
but it is typical of me that I have part share in a dilapidated
1970's 'oss box. It won't make me a millionaire so I only hope that
it doesn't bankrupt me.
The
esteemed sculptor Tim Tolkien – one of our creative troupe – is
tasked with renovating the 'oss box, if we ever raise the funding
that is. To that end he bought a toy 'oss box which he claimed he
would use to map out the renovations. But if I was a betting man I
would wager all of my beer money for next month that he just wanted a
toy 'oss box, pure and simple. It's not hard to see the child in Tim,
which is part of the reason why I like him. It's probably no
co-incidence that his occupation is a creative one that demands the
use of imagination.
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| Davey Duke, in a former life as a bingo caller. |
I
haven't got a toy 'oss box but I have got a novelty toy harmonica,
it's about an inch long and it only has three reeds and I used to
like playing When the Saints go Marching In on it. I
dug the novelty harmonica out the other day when I was rooting
through my music box trying to find an odd Chinese harmonica that I
bought many years ago, that sounds like an accordion when
you play it. But the reeds of the small mouth organ must have rusted
or the wooden comb warped as it made a strange sound.
I
started to play the Chinese harmonica instead but I had to quickly
stop as The Spratt – Babushka's lively Jack Russell dog, who was
staying with me at Codger Mansions – took exception to the
instrument's sound and he started to bark at me. When our little band
of minstrels play at the Flagon we always do Willie Dixon's Little
Red Rooster (popularised by The Rolling Stones in the
1960's) and the lyrics go “dogs begin to bark/ and the hounds begin
to howl”, so I think that the barking Spratt wants to join our
band, which would be a good move as he's a top dog and universally
popular with everyone, which is more than can be said for the rest of
us.
©
Dominic Horton, September 2015.
*
Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan
Rendall
