Jessica Fletcher, PG, Misc

Here is my open letter to Jessica Fletcher;

Ms Fletcher,

please note that you are NOT invited to my thing. Death follows you like a cat follows a ham sandwich on a string (no prizes for guessing what I got up to today... yep, screwing with the cat's head) and you are not welcome at my house, my gigs, or anywhere else I plan on being. I like all my friends and do not wish for them to die. Those around that need a bit of death, I shall do away with them myself, and I don't need you pottering around solving all my lovely murders. I have enough to worry about with Scooby Doo and his mob. No wonder nobody goes to your conventions!

Yours

Rob F

PS Seriously, lady. Don't come near me. The Dog is trained to kill if she hears even a bar of your theme music.

PPS I hope you're well, I'm a big fan of your show.

I don't know why I started with that. All is know is that it had to be said. Now watch as I effortlessly make it relevant to a music blog...

...er

Ok, I can't. It was bit of surrealist self indulgent exercise that springs from my irrational fear of crime novelists and I apologize for inflicting it on an unsuspecting internetz. Many of you reading this have probably cursed my name, my clan and my firstborn, and have set your computer on fire in disgust. For those of you who are still reading, though, let me reward you with a little morsel of epicness. Or epicality. Whichever of those is a word. Last sunday, after an AMAZING Fast.Like.Fun gig (supporting local soul/funk band Jericho) I met Peter Green! Peter. Green.

“Surely, Rob, you don't mean the legendary British blues-boom guitar player that took Clapton's place in the Bluesbreakers and then went on to form Fleetwood Mac, leaving a legacy of some of the sweetest electric blues known to man or beast?”

“Oh yes, dear Reader, thats exactly who I mean! You're looking well, by the way. Have you lost weight?”

Halfway through the gig, the sound engineer, who knows me as a blues fanatic, approached the stage and told me he was in the building. Despite a lot of looking around (it's quite a sizable venue), I didn't actually spot the man until closing time, when the bouncers were herding people out the door. After waiting to speak to him for ten minutes, I realized I was adding to a bit of a bottle neck in the only exit route out of the building, so joined Easy Keith and a few friends a little close to the door, resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get a chance to talk to the man, but incredibly grateful that I saw him in the flesh. As it happens though, we DID get the chance to say hello as he was passing, and he was incredibly warm and friendly, especially when he found out we were musicians. Handshakes and good natured chest slaps were the order of the day, before he was shepherded in to the now-deserted bar for a drink as the guest of the management.

Having played the venue not two hours previous, Keith and I were welcomed into the back bar too, and after having a drink with the Jericho guys and a bit of shuffling around, we nervously approached Green for a second time, this time for a photograph. The man was delighted to see us still on the premises, and insisted we sit down and join him. And then promptly ordered us to sit back down when we realized we were monopolizing on his time and should probably go. We had a sing-song. On paper, that means I sang with Peter Green. It's not going on the CV, but it happened! Eventually we tore ourselves away and rejoined our friends for another drink. Green and his minders didn't stick around much longer after that, but made a point of coming over, shaking us by the hand and saying goodbye to us before he left, and actually applauded all of us as young musicians, which was really sweet. We in turn applauded him for being Peter Fecking Green as he left, which was, of course, well deserved, him being Peter Green and all that.

Although it's generally not a good idea to meet your heroes, I can say hand on heart that PG (yeah, we're on initial terms) was an absolute pleasure to hang out with. He was engaging, social and funny, which, as many of you may understand, came as a bit of a surprise. Green has, by all accounts, suffered from schizophrenia since the 70s, which has seriously effected his ability to tour and to engage with his fans. According to one of his friends, he was in a particularly good mood that night, so I suppose we're lucky to catch him at a good time. His message to all us young local musicians (and one he repeated several times) was 'Keep playing, keep rocking', which was, coming from him, pretty inspiring stuff. It's certainly one I'll wheel out whenever the going seems a little uphill.

There we are now; Easy Keith from FLF, Peter Green, Me 

Plans for the OHP album are progressing beautifully. We had a lovely jam session featuring some touring blues musicians from France last monday, which I think might be repeated again next week. Even in the last two weeks we've really started to tighten things up for the album. I'll be a-buhlogging about all this in a lot more detail soon.

FLF continue to rock out with our respective clocks out (in that some of us wear watches). The new material went down a storm at the last gig, with more on the way. The next gig will be recorded using state of the art Stuff, which should be interesting. I'll keep you posted on that too. 

All in all, life remains pretty sweet. 

I bet Jessica Fletcher never got to meet PG...

Thanks for reading guys. More to come :-)

Album, writing, zombies

Another great few days in the land of the Rob, dear reader! The weekend consisted of various occurrences of acoustic-bluesing scattered over a hundred mile radius. Guitars were strummed with reckless (and possibly criminal) abandon, harps were blown violently, vocal chords were beaten to within an inch of their lives and feet were stomped to such a degree that I'm convinced I'm half an inch shorter than I was when last I posted. Men drank deeply and roared their approval. Women swooned and danced (a dangerous combination, when you think about it). Love, lust, revenge, a daring protagonist, a Communist plot, aliens, lost treasure, and possibly dinosaurs. The usual stuff, really. The movie's out in 2013, with that guy playing the part of me, and me playing the part of someone else.

One stand-out occurrence during the weekend was one particular gig, about 40 minutes from my home town with Harmonica Niall, under our collective moniker of the Black Mountain Boys. Seeing as how we had a PA to transport, and neither of us having what one might call the ability to pilot one of those newfangled automobiles, we enlisted the help of Poppa V; Fast.Like.Fun's resident miracle man. Screw the musicians, V was the real star of the show in this case. The man did the driving, helped set up the gear, sorted out the lights, soundchecked us, recorded us, filmed us, and took stills. Not only that, but within a day he had polished up over 200 photos and edited five videos, which I shall post in the next week or so with a bit of luck. Needless to say, the man is... well... the man.

The big news this week is that, on tuesday, Badger and I finally set a date for the recording of the One Horse Pony debut album. I'll do a full post on our plans soon, but it's exciting to know that the ball is now rolling on something we've been talking about for over a year. At this stage, the material is written and played to death (of which I'm a massive advocate before even setting foot in a studio), the band has never sounded so good, and we're getting the right people in to give us a hand. If everything goes well, it promises to be a great album. I was thinking of doing a video blog of the run-up and the process itself. Any thoughts?

Partly because of the impending recording, we've also taken the plunge and asked our long-time percussion player in our weekly session to join OHP. Due both to his technical ability, his unique sound and the sheer amount we've been playing together, the brush-wielding nutter affectionately known as the Meerkat will now be joining OHP for gigs. “Why is he called Meercat?” I hear you ask. Seeemples! He habitually sits facing the door in our weekly session. His head shooting up (you guessed it... like a meerkat) as a pretty girl enters the bar is a sight to behold. The constant up and down motion on a busy night, has had me (who sits with my back to the door, and therefore facing Meerkat) coming away with a slight nausea akin to seasickness. The man plays some mean percussion though, so all is forgiven.

The last two days have been busy. Keith from FLF came down yesterday for what turned out to be a seriously productive writing session. True to form, the songs we had both been working on in preparation were promptly shelved in favour of us stumbling across rocking riffs, giggling, then writing lyrics to suit, followed by fist-bumping. Today kicked off with a leisurely breakfast of coffee and growling at things, but really began with some more album talk with Badger and a lovely little acoustic jam. At lunchtime, the rest of the Fast.Like.Fun brigade rolled up in the van for some rehearsal and to hash out the new songs. Loud noises, le chatz about arrangement, more giggling, more fist bumping, all rounded up in true hardrock fashion with tea, cake and custard (thanks Fran). It means that before long, we'll have some more rocking tunes infecting your interweb, so keep an eye on facebook and soundcloud.

I've been spending some of my downtime laying some arboreal smack down in Plants Vs Zombies. Applying the wonderful life lessons I'm learning therein, I have taken to preparing for the zombie apocalypse by putting my drill sergeant hat on and shouting at trees. My brains remain uneaten. Chalkin' that down as a win. Your move, zombies...

More to come real soon, guys. Thanks for reading :-)

R