The very wonderful new double issue of TQ magazine is out now. Please buy it. Within its pages, you'll find this article by me; a plaintive cry into the wilderness, regarding my aching desire to be more creative. Hopefully, someone will listen -:
Right at the outset, I’ll hold my hands up and admit that Glam Rock is one of my least favourite kinds of music, though I’d insist that Mott the Hoople, whose Bowie connection via “All the Young Dudes” is probably, sonically speaking, the only thing that keeps Mott from being shoehorned in with other long haired, early 70s, greasy trucking hard rockers like Man, Pretty Things, Nazareth and a whole load of others. Instead, history has wrongly lumped them in with Slade, Wizard, Sweet and all those other spangly jumpsuit attired posers and ponces.
Perhaps that’s why legendary Mott frontman Ian Hunter tried to present himself as a kind of rocking Renaissance Man with Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star, his scabrous and strangely naive account of their Fall 1972 US tour. The book eventually came out in December 74, just as news broke of Hunter’s decision to carve out his future career away from the band, which subsequently heralded the release of his classic solo single Once Bitten Twice Shy. Since then, to rather more critical acclaim than record sales, Hunter, born in the months leading up to the outbreak of WW II has continued to plough his own furrow and good luck to the fella who will be 84 on his next birthday. As he so presciently observed about a career in pop music: It may look flashy, but it's over and you are finished before you know it.
The start of 2022 saw me undergoing a profound personal crisis, that was almost existential in nature. Aged 57, I found myself desperately dissatisfied with the mundane confines of my everyday life. I wanted to do more with my time on earth, to be creative, see places, meet people in what could be my declining years, but was unsure how that might happen. Alright, I’ve always been a writer, but that can be a somewhat solitary vice (cue raucous Syd James style canned laughter…), so even though I edited glove magazine, edition #9 of which came free with TQ #52, I still wasn’t meeting people and sparking off their creative energy. Things changed for the better after the first live performance I saw this year: Auntie Joy 2 on March 19th at Holy Cross Church in Ryton. Now I’ll make it clear from the start I’m not a member of the Anglican Communion, so when I say the proceedings inspired me, I mean creatively, not spiritually, even if my relationship to the Shunyata Improvisation Group was instantly forged and subsequently maintained at a seriously cerebral level that day.
One of the most important things to happen on March 19th wasn’t Ryton & Crawcrook Albion’s last minute winner against Bedlington Terriers that I witnessed after the gig was over, but meeting TQ paterfamilias Andy for the very first time and subsequently arranging to go for a pint together in town. At that second meeting, in The Bodega on Westgate Road, I poured out my heart to him, regarding the creative frustrations I felt were impeding my quality of life. Yes, I loved writing, but I desperately wanted to break out of the no readership underground (NRU anyone?) and present my work to people in a more challenging way. Additionally, as a confirmed anti-musician, I have been unable to play guitar properly for many years now, nearer to 5 than 4 decades, and every day I ached, yearned, pined to do so in a performative context. On that Tuesday afternoon, having acquired the necessary supportive assent from Andy, I made a firm decision that I would embark upon a creative escapade to see what I could achieve in 2022. Without spoiling the ending of this piece, I can say, in recognition of Chairman Mao’s sagacious observation that “even a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step,” I’ve made a start, which is okay, but I’m desperate to do more, go further and make a tangible impact upon the Newcastle NAU scene. Being perfectly honest, I don’t think I’ve done that as yet.
My first tentative toe dip into the luxuriant pool of performative creativity was with the estimable Shunyata Improvisation Group at Cobalt Studios on Friday May 13th. As part of the annual Late Shows events, they were hosting an improvised evening around the theme of “Escape” and were seeking collaborators. I put my name forward as I’d recently written a piece on such a theme and was delighted to be accepted. Having printed the relevant document out and taken a copy with me, I realised that scripted words were not the expected mode of delivery for this mode of performance, but that didn’t matter in the end as I discovered I couldn’t read from a 12 point printed document with my contact lenses in, so I ended up improvising the piece from memory and, despite being wracked with nerves to the point of vomiting before the performance began (in the toilets not on the stage a la John Lydon 1976), I think it went quite well and I actually enjoyed it. Whether the audience did or not was a moot, and perhaps irrelevant, point, but it certainly ennobled me to pick up an acoustic guitar on the invitation of Nigel from Shunyata, to accompany Andy in his performance later that evening.
After
this gig, I felt utterly elated by the sense of achievement engendered. A
discussion with Andy led to an introduction to recent arrival from London,
sound artist and electronics wizard Chris Bartholomew. There was also an offer
to play the second TQ live event at the Lit & Phil on August 19th,
providing we felt our endeavours were worthy of public consumption. A second
potential show at a wannabe barista style bistro in Prudhoe was quickly, and
properly, withdrawn as we didn’t appear to appeal to the target Tyne Valley demi
monde demographic. I did, however, appear solo at a spoken word evening at
The Engine Room on North Shields Fish Quay, reading a couple of short pieces
(printed in 18 point to render them legible), including “The Deer Hunter,”
which became one of Chris and I’s performance cornerstones, as well as being
accepted for publication in the Scottish literary magazine Razur Cuts. Being
honest, I found the experience of simply reading aloud a little less satisfactory
than I had in all the years I’d previously done the same. It just felt
pedestrian and two dimensional. Time needed to move on. I knew I wanted sound
to go with my words, which is why I embraced the scheduled performance with
Chris, that we’d decided would go under the name of BARTHOLOMEW/cusack.
Three practises at First Avenue Studios in Heaton later, we’d assembled a 30 minute set, comprising three spoken word recitations that would be accompanied by Chris’s musical backing and three semi-improvised instrumental pieces where I was given licence to abuse a guitar and Chris found ways to complement the maelstrom. In short, we’d bonded immediately and found a common purpose and vision that seemed almost telepathic. The performance at the Lit & Phil was well received and made us determined to forge ahead, to the extent we recorded “The Deer Hunter” on August Bank Holiday Monday, as well as agreeing to ditch the other two spoken pieces and look for other examples from my oeuvre that we could develop. As yet, that is a job of work we haven’t undertaken, and I see it as a priority for the future, if we are going to continue as a viable entity. Especially if we are going to perform live though, at the point of writing, there have been zero offers of other gigs and I’m at a complete loss where to go or who to ask to find an opportunity to play live. Anyone prepared to make us an offer?
While
I’ve put all my musical eggs in one basket with BARTHOLOMEW/cusack,
Chris is a superbly talented musical polymath. He can compose, produce, plan,
create, mix and so much more, all with consummate ease and I am in awe of his
abilities. To be frank, I am pleased to be a tiny part of his create universe.
To this extent, I was delighted to go as a punter to Chris’s solo show at The
Globe on November 3rd as part of the usual Thursday Evening Prayer
Meeting session.
I think the last time I set foot in The Globe would have been 40 years ago, when it was one of the few bars that sold draft Bass; we’re talking long lost treasures like The Glendale in Byker, The Burton House and other palatial pubs long torn down in the name of progress. Almost in memory of those days, I was required to skirt an enormous pile of vomit on the pavement near Jury’s Inn. Once I’d affected entry and managed to find the correct upstairs room, after escaping the clutches of a bloke on the door who thought I was looking for a religious gathering, I found the relevant room that seemed to have been a slavish recreation of the much missed Broken Doll upstairs venue.
The evening was supposed to be Chris playing an opening set and then improvisation from trios drawn from a hat full of volunteers. Well, names on bits of paper at least. I knew Chris would be good value as soon as he picked up a frying pan and said he’d be using this as a percussive device as the sound it produced was “reliable.” Being honest, I am so much in awe of Chris’s talents that I find it impossible to review his work objectively. Not only do I marvel at the creativity of his practice, but I like him enormously as a bloke and I’d advise you to get on his Bandcamp page ASAP, then tell him to do more stuff with his pal cusack.
So, what is to be done in the immediate future by BARTHOLOMEW/cusack? Create more pieces. Record new tracks. Play some gigs. Release product. Get a website. Try and have a visible profile. That’s a lot of work, but I’m certain we’re up for it. Being positive, what we have done is record versions of the musical pieces we’ve created and are happy with. On October 15th, Chris and I spent a loud and productive morning at the John Marley Centre making digital footprints. That means there are now 4 BARTHOLOMEW/cusack pieces in the archives that I’d hope we could eventually release as a CD one day. Obviously, it would be great to balance these recordings with 2 further spoken word pieces, but we’ll need to work on those. Also, we’ll need to sort out the logic of how to communicate with our potential audience, which will presumably mean a Bandcamp page. As someone who doesn’t go for downloads, I’d like it to be an adjunct to physical CD sales, but I’m aware that how audiences consume their music is very different to me wandering up to Listen Ear and asking about the latest post punk releases on a Saturday lunchtime in the late 70s. But, to conclude, if I’m completely honest, I’m as excited today about the future of music and my involvement in it, as I was buying Rough Trade and Fast Product singles in 1979.
Carpe diem, motherfuckers…
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