AWB in Bristol

This review originally saw daylight around 2007 but since then got filed away in a rare clear-out session.

Average White Band
The Fleece, Bristol 25th May -

　

As the evening takes hold, the gig gradually fills up with Blokes of a Certain Age; mostly mates, but some probably brought by their wives. Thirty years ago it might have been a forest of comb-overs, but bald is the new Brylcreem. There are, though, plenty of under-thirties dotted about, and a gaggle of aggressively healthy matching blondes has captured the frontline.

　

The lights dimmed, the band plugged in, a tape of Billy Connolly taking the piss out of AWB and the actual band took off with a medley of bits, including just enough of 'Pick up the Pieces' to switch on the crowd's pleasure circuits. Beaming smiles all round. Alan introduced 'What does it Take', a tune from their first, 'Gollywog' album, for hard-core fans.

Klyde Jones, recent addition to the line-up, took the stratospheric vocal lead for 'Music is the Queen of my Life', Next up: an instrumental, which after a couple of bars identified itself as, hey, 'Work To Do'. Alan came in on vocal refrain, followed again by Klyde. If we hadn't noticed it already, another welcome addition to AWB is Freddy 'V' Vigdor on saxes and keyboards, keeping that Big Sound intact.

The new drummer, Rocky Bryant, got his star spot in a slab of pure fragmented funk. Rocky looks about as young as Tony Williams would have been when he joined Miles Davis.

　
Deceptive, though- Alan tells me after the gig that Rocky is a lot more grown-up than he appears; it's just that he, like Klyde, hasn't grown the wrinkles we white boys nurture. Other news is that his predecessor, Steve Ferrone, has joined forces with founder member Roger Ball in a West Coast band. When I mention the fact that the front-of-house lady is called Lulu, it leads us to reminiscence about the Scottish music scene in the early 'sixties. Names like The Senate, The Poets and The Hi-fi- Combo are bandied about. Alan's experience goes all the way back to seeing The Silver Beetles. Onnie mentions an ancient Frankie Miller record with tram-cars on the cover. And somehow that takes us to talking about DC Thomson, of Beano and Dandy fame. A great many Scots (including Alan and your correspondent) have at some time worked for DC Thomson, but the only one who got famous was Dudley D Watkins, which seems fair as he devoted his life to writing and drawing Oor Wullie, The Broons, Sparky's Magic Patch, Black Bob the Wonder Dog, Desperate Dan and a good bit more. His weekly workload would have been unremarkable if shared among five or six less devoted mortals. By a strange twist, AWB's first drummer, Robbie McIntosh, is buried beside Watkins.

　

Cut to the gig: More effortless funky swing in 'What Are You Gonna Do For Me'. The sound maybe doesn't have to be cranked up so high - the band's dynamic arrangements aught to be enough to hit the spot. When they pulled back a little for a bass solo from Klyde it worked well, but Onnie's distinctive solos throughout just managed to fly over the strange atonal growl accompanying Alan's bass notes. Alan introduced the next piece, dedicated to 'Scotland's other national drink'. Not as you might guess, Irn Bru, but a slightly more aged beverage, 'McEwan's Export' - nothing to do here but dance. 'You Me and Us' was followed by that old Stranglers favourite, 'Walk on By'. Not immediately recognisable as they have sliced it up and chopped in the funk. 'I'm the One', an excellent anthem for everyone who wants to be in front, segued into the deathless 'Cut the Cake' and here some fundamental change took over on the floor. The crowd, who had up till now been joyfully enthusiastic, got rather wild. It was the end of the two-hour set, but of course everyone wanted more. The encore was the soul-medicine 'Pick up the Pieces' and we all duly got wilder. AWB, generous to a fault, finished for real with a relatively soothing 'Let's go Round Again'.

picture courtesy of wikipedia

A Glowing Encomium

My thanks go to Mrs Doris Bangol for the following good words:

I found a large-scale publish company .There are favourable price and fine  quality goods very much. When I ordered the “Spring-heeled Kate”, in one week, I  received it and found it very well in the quality. I am very happy for the purching. I hope  that you can share my happiness.

Doris Bangol (Mrs)

film reviews on radio

My website was off-line for a while, so the occasional pointers to my radio reviews on local radio -bcfm.org.uk - of film, art and theatre also took a break. Here is one - we don't just do movies here;  the theatre gets a look in too, and above is the evidence, with a random selection of other titles. 
 The Age of Stupid  - a dire but fascinating warning about the way we treat our planet. see it twice - but walk, don't drive!

VIEW at HARVEY’S A look through the earhole at Bristol’s new gallery, in Little Soho...

THE AWAKENING: noisy but creepy and ghostly who-dun-it set in a 1930’s country pile, with two first-league actresses to give it class.

PINA 3D - Wim Wenders’ triibute to 　modern dance’s great choreographer, 　the late Pina Bausch. Recreates her works onstage or in a variety of outdoor settings. The combination of extreme imaginations, individual talent and 3D, is gorgeous

ROUTE IRISH - named after the dangerous road in Baghdad. Ken Loach’s ultra-dark look at the war as Fergus tries to find out how his fellow contract soldier and life-long pal 　was killed. As complex as anything by Dashiell Hammett.and hypnotic.

SUBMARINE - In a very ordinary seaside town, a 15-year-old boy copes with his parents’ shaky marriage while trying to lose his virginity. It’s funny, eccentric and charming...

Pierre Etaix

The star of the current Bristol Slapstick Festival indulged us all by appearing in person at nearly all of the performances of his films. For some of us, merely to be on the same planet at the same time as the neglected clown-genius of film-making was good enough. But here he was, before the great, the good and the fans, receiving his Aardman Award from Peter Law: a lifesize statue of Morph. Etaix' body of work is small, but every one, be it feature or short, is a gem, and his influence has spread through the work of disciples who include such luminaries as J L Goddard. This afternoon we were treated to  one of the more famous shorts, inevitably La Rupture . I first saw it and Le Grand Amour; the one about automotive beds becoming transports of guilty delight, back in the 'Sixties thanks to the indulgent kindness of Glasgow's Cosmo Cinema, despite the tortuous copyright contract that kept them from the screen for so long.

The rest of the Festival has been as good as it gets: a gala performance of Keaton's timeless The General and - did I say the great and the good? faces to see this time include Terry Jones, Ian Lavender, Gryff Rhys Jones, Bill Oddie and Kevin Brownlow, who if not up on-stage introducing films were thronging with the masses.

New novel set in Memphis

My second novel published on Kindle, Springheeled Kate, is now available here

It's a story of passion between a youthful guitarist and a star of country music with the background of early rock 'n' roll, hallucinogens and the Memphis riots.

Visions and schemes at RWA

A document published by Simon Baker (creator of the Royal West of England Academy of Art Board; see below), lays out his ‘vision’ for the future of the RWA. It begins: “The RWA Board has resolved that the RWA has to obtain control of the Friends’ cash, subscriptions and database. The purpose of this note is to set out the legal means of achieving this transfer, the options and the position if FRWA agreement to meeting the RWA Board’s requirements is not forthcoming.”
Not surprisingly, the FRWA membership was not unanimously tickled pink by this proposal. Following the outcry from members of FRWA over the news that the Friends would be swallowed by the RWA, a meeting was fixed between the dissidents and two board (of Trustees) members, Norman Biddle and Trystan Hawkins. Mr Hawkins, recently added to the Board by Simon Baker, had been given the task of putting into action the Board’s moves to take over the artistic decisions at the RWA from the Academicians.

Not all the complainants were there though; I’m told that Mr Baker prevented some of the invitations from being sent out.
There seems to be no doubt that he popped into the envelope-stuffing room as copies of an update for the FRWA were being redied for posting and said, “Do not send this out.” - His physical presence in that confined space apparently being enough to enforce his will on the volunteers, none of whom had taken a course with Charles Atlas. The update revealed how far the RWA had gone in abrogation. I quote: “ The RWA Board is empowered by the RWA constitution to establish new groups and to withdraw recognition from existing groups.”
It questioned why the decision was made to incorporate the Friends within the RWA, and takes a stand against FRWA subscriptions going straight into the RWA’s bank account as this could leave the Friends having to wind up. This ‘Direct Subscription Scheme’ has been given a name: It’s Called ‘Friends’…
Norman Biddle denied that there was any such thing as a doppleganger FRWA. a cuckoo in the nest, but while the Board-dominated RWA holds the FRWA like a puppet on its knee, and there is a likely drain on potential FRWA income from the ’Scheme’; it, whatever it is, clucks like a cuckoo.

Great fleas have little fleas...

The Royal West of England Academy of Arts is, as far as the general public can see, on an inexorably upwards curve, going from success to success. Gaining museum status, becoming more accessible all day every day, putting on the occasional blockbuster and publishing the hefty Art magazine to replace the Friends’ Newsletter.
There can be no doubt that this all good for business; and the RWA is a business - at least as far as having to make a profit rather than a loss. But behind this rise out of the red there is a strange tale of internal politics that would be more in place in the Papal Rome of the Medicis and Borgias than this quiet unprovoking little world of ageing artists and volunteers in the twenty-first century.
Just for the sake of chronology, I date the period of change back to the day the Friends of the RWA (FRWA) voted in a new chairman, Simon Baker. In the following year, on 15 March 2009, I found myself being gently persuaded to stand down from the committee to make room for a new member; shortly later, Roland Harmer, editor of the Friends Newsletter, known to be close to me, began losing editorial and executive control of the Newsletter to the Chair, who as Chair would automatically be on the newsletter subcommittee.
The new Chairman did not stay for long, though: he left the FRWA Committee to form the new Board of Trustees, which, it was trumpeted, would be better placed to manage the quotidian business side of keeping the Academy running and out of the red, while leaving all the creative work, the exhibitions, in the hands of the Academicians - but it wasn’t long before the Trustees took over the exhibitions too. A new chair, Roger Manthorp, told me he had been ‘fingered’ by the outgoing Chair as his replacement. He was quite pleased at the time, although he had one word of caution - the academicians had been persuaded to hand most of their executive powers to the Trustees and agree that this would be irrevocable.
Six months later Manthorp angrily told me he had resigned, as the outgoing Chair had insisted on keeping his seat.
Next on the calendar: Derek Balmer, President of the RWA, abruptly left his post. Two witnesses told me that there had been a vote of no confidence; one of them had been asked to leave the room during the vote and returned in time to see the President leave, “an angry look on his face.”
The President was replaced in the same manner as had the position of Friends’ Chair. When I asked the new man if the President had jumped or was pushed, he protested that there had been no vote of no-confidence;he appeared to believe this himself. But within the year he, too, had resigned after finding he was not being allowed to make his own decisions without pressure or interference.
As I write, I understand that the FRWA, although it has not, as a charity separate from the RWA, been wound up, has been incorporated into the RWA (which would put the Friends under the control of the Trustees) - slightly dodgy in book-keeping terms as the RWA is the FRWA’s customer; and word is that the Trustees are making moves to wrest whatever powers the Academicians still hold, from them.
In the end, the RWA remains in business despite the recession, and despite the power games you may find echoed in many offices and companies. At the same time one of our protagonists has made a good few enemies and may well make more. Such is life. No explanation!