Evening Strumpets,
Just noticed that this mental old blog has recently passed the 20,000 visits from places as far apart as Thirsk to Northallerton, Amazing. But really, what an amazing year.
We've managed to get regular paid gigs. Have songs played on Local Radio and BBC Local Radio. Record a 4 track EP which we personally think is amazing. Have the CD played at our workplaces when they didn't know we were in there. Have a CD Launch night headlining with the most amazing bands and artists in Teesside. Have an X Factor Finalist support us at a gig in Boro (aw what the hell, it was Abi Alton about three months before she went on and frankly should have won, as well as headlined the night we played)! Be on iTunes. Have our kids come to a Festival we played, at which I camped with my boy Hal for the first time ever and for that reason for me was the best gig of the year.
More importantly as I was reminded by that most Grumpiest of Charmers, Carl, the other night, We've just had the most fun playing our own songs with our oldest mates and usually to our newest mates (Simon Mason, you are an obvious exception which makes the rule).
Thanks must go to:
The Charmer's Wives and Families; We have put you all through so much that you must really love us, though you always lead the dancing when you come and see us.
Steve Hoggart who was patience personified throughout the recording of the EP.
Leon Pape, Matt Speight and Daniel Cook for their relentless support, encouragement, and work in getting us to play live supporting the finest music I defy you to find anywhere in this Land. Mint, boosh, and Nirvana to the triptych!
Angie and John Taylor for having confidence in us.
Snowy for providing the perfect template that we can give Sound engineers whenever we turn up at gigs with our proverbial banjo's in our hands.
EXNE and, particularly, James Poppleton (who is 47), Cat McGuinness, Paul Bradley and Paul Mcquade for being the Trampagne champions of the year.
And finally, Ian, Lily, Tommy, Dave, and Mary for being the reasons we are who we are. They'll be playing the Ep up there, but Tommy will be looking in the celestial wardrobe to see if anyone is hiding in there, whilst Dave is booking the Monday night turns!
Thank you all, you lovely bunch of Strumpets, here's the last vid from the O'Connells gig which may well be one of our highlights of playing live, for this year. As the Gentleman likes to shout at the end "ONE MORE SONG!!!!!" if you can leave them shouting that, then you must be doing something right.
Till the next one, learn something new,
Mark.
Back to Reality.
The six weeks school holidays are now just a collection of gradually fading distant recollections reflected upon by weary parents with an enervated smile. The legend “Back to School 2012” which gaudily resplendent in its certainty has been teasing, from shop windows, each of us blessed with homemade small people since about three weeks before the kids actually broke up, is now a reality. It has recently replaced Christmas as the most vigorously anticipated event of this years Parental Calendar. If anyone at Coke is interested I have a fully storyboarded thirty second advert with “Holidays are ending, holidays are ending” being sang over a fleet of school buses taking the delightfully dour offspring back to their learned seats of education.
Schools gates are once again flowing with adults looking at each other with eyebrows raised and smiles aplenty, which is a perfect mask for “not only do I not remember what yours or your kid’s names are, I don’t really care”. Mention is made of how quick the holidays have gone, how the good weather always starts once the kids go back to school, how much the kids have changed and grown since you’ve last seen them, and apologies proffered for not being in touch over the holidays for that sleepover in the six weeks you promised their child on the last day of term, when all you wanted to do was get home and have a cold one.
The institution that is the lollipop lady is once again deposited on pavements up and down the Country. Our lollipop lady is one of the old school. Not for her the new wave of …erm…lollipop ladying [sic, shurely] whereby kids are assisted in crossing the road at prebuilt Pelican Crossings. Pressing a button and waiting until traffic is electronically directed by highway law to stop? Pah, that’s for lightweights! Our lollipop lady is the Colt Seavers of what is, let’s be honest about this, jaywalking whilst holding a long thin stick with a big circle on top. Her Matrix-like moves on a morning and afternoon, wouldn’t look out of place in a Burt Reynolds 1970`s flick. Just as Moses stood atop the Red Sea, she raises her staff of lollipop, and lo the traffic did stop, and it was good. And it came to pass that the children did cross by, each one jumping up and tapping the round “Stop Children” logo, and the enraged drivers in their catatonic redundant vehicles did secretly fume and wish that they had just mowed her down as she jumped, Yoda like, into the road.
Which brings us to reality. Mornings are no longer a casual merry go round, but instead become a scene out of “Speed” whereby anything that isn’t being done less than fifty miles an hour results in the house exploding. Teeth are being brushed whilst ties are being tied whilst slices of toast are being eaten whilst shoes and socks are being put on whilst bowls of cereal are being slurped whilst homework is being completed, despite it having been in the schoolbag for six weeks. All under the watchful eye of the almighty SpongeBob staring down from the television set in each room like Orwell’s Big Brother….except he`s yellow…..and is relatively harmless….and is a sponge…..and possibly gay…so not really at all like Big Brother (ironically, reading this back I could however be also describing Brian Dowling). Damn, I knew I should have used Mr Tumble, now there`s a judgemental bastard!
The journey into work by car/public transport/bike ride which has taken five minutes over the past month and a half is back to being the thirty minute stop-startathon we have to endure between Monday and Friday, for six to seven week periods at a time. Any travelling on a bus between the hours of eight and nine in the morning, and three and four in the afternoon is akin to being a stapled to the seat guest of honour whilst wearing a suit made out of bananas at a chimps tea party, just as amphetamine laced jelly is being served and Status Quo are cranked up to number eleven on the PA. Local shops between 12 and 1 in the afternoon bear similarities to Cambodia’s Killing Fields. Actually that may be an unfair comparison, scowling school kids with slices of London Pizza dribbling garlic sauce from their calloused paws make the Khmer Rouge look like The Polyphonic Spree.
Reality doesn’t bite, it sucks.
Right that’s your lot, I’m off to see how Thing one (Year 5, or Third Year Juniors in old money) and Thing two (Year 1, or I have literally no idea what this is in old money) got on during their first day back, because as awful and daunting as it has been for me, I’ll bet a damned if I know to a diddle eyed Joe that it was ten times worse for them, God love `em. Till the next one learn something new, like why do lollipop ladies carry a piece of chalk in their pocket? Send in any suggestions to the EXNE email address, or send me a tweet via @greatnorthstrum and the best ones as well as the correct answer will be printed in the Strum next month
Mark.
