Rich

Lip Up Fatty - Bad Manners

Yes, I went to one of the national Bashes. I still have some of the photos I took that day. I remember Jon Shuker was there.

Fixed.

Not a personal embarrassment this, but a brilliant anecdote I read years ago which is too good not to relate. Hopefully I've got the details right. It was related by a drummer whose band were booked to play a tea dance, can't remember the venue. He travelled there under his own steam, with the rest of the band following in the bus/van/whatevs. He got there first, and set his kit up. No sign of the band. Time marches on, still no sign of the band. He waited nervously at his kit and absent-mindedly started playing a quiet waltz. He looked up and, to his horror, couples were taking to the floor and starting to dance to his unaccompanied rhythm. He kept it going for a few minutes, and eventually ended on a graceful rall to polite applause. Someone handed him a note and he opened it, hoping it's going to tell him that the band are just arriving. Instead, he reads, "Please can you play Red Roses For A Blue Lady?". (A few minutes later, another note arrived to tell him that the bus/van/whatevs. had blown up on the motorway and the band will not be joining him.)

Could have been worse. You could have done a stage dive and no-one caught you... I remember a support act from years back who were a bass & drums duo. They had this weird lectern thing between them on stage which it turned out was concealing the laptop from which they were reading all the chords and lyrics. They spent the whole gig pretending to face the audience but looking at the laptop out of the corner of their eye. They had a backing track with drum and keys parts on it, and weirdly it also it had the guitar solos on it too. So whenever it came to a solo, the guitarist would keep strumming away, peering awkwardly at the chords on the laptop, while the recorded solo wailed away in the background. To put the lid on it, they both looked bored out of their minds. The whole thing was toe-curlingly dreadful, saved only by the bassist's beautiful vintage Les Paul Triumph bass and his uncanny resemblance to Alan Partridge. Ah-haa.

Indeed. I bet the Wal sounds dreamy through the EA. Especially with him playing it.

Big Dipper - Elton John

I love the look of total astonishment on the guy’s face at 1.26

Red Rain - Peter Gabriel

Not me personally, but it was embarrassing for the band as a whole and the drummer especially. It was my first really good band back in the 80s, at our very first gig... we were a rocky-synth-pop band, sort of Duran with more guitars I suppose, and we had an intro tape... an ethereal synth piece with a bass drone, which gradually rose to a crescendo and then four clicks as our cue into the big opening of our first song. Unfortunately the bass on the intro tape used to cause a massive sympathetic rattle from the snares on the drummer's, errm, snare drum, so to avoid this he disengaged the snare strainer to drop them away from the head. And then forgot. Yes, you can see what's coming can't you... the intro rises to its crescendo, four clicks and BLAM the big dramatic intro, drummer hits his snare and instead of a gunshot "crack!" it goes "BOING!" like a timbale. Drummer realises what he's done, fumbles to re-engage the strainer and thankfully we are only treated to a couple of BOINGs before normal service is resumed. Alas the damage is done, and our big intro sounds more like "what if A-Ha played samba?". Thankfully the rest of the gig was an absolute belter, but it took a while for the drummer to live that intro down.

Part Of The Union - The Strawbs

The Lone Ranger - Quantum Jump

Rikki Don't Lose That Number - Steely Dan

Break Like the Wind - Spın̈al Tap

Child of Mine - Carole King

...for nothing

If I wash my hands before I play, I can wave bye bye to my callouses very quickly indeed. I recall reading an anecdote from John Giblin of a session he did, where the artist made him change his strings after every second take.

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush

And he wrote Shipbuilding, Robert Wyatt's version of which is possibly the best piece of recorded popular music ever.

We Don't Need Another superHero - Tina Turner.

Pass The Peas - The JBs