Month: March 2024

Day 248

Tuesday March 12

Mark:

Oh we’re so glad we’re filming things more and more now. In the earlier days, which encompasses both of our European tours and most of our Ireland adventures, we were reliant on other people to film us, but because most of our shows were in places we weren’t known, and by design we didn’t have friends with us, we often didn’t feel able to ask anyone to do it. Consequently, we have very little filmed record of whole swathes of gigs. One of the more disappointing experiences happened in Antwerp in August 2022. Someone was filming us and we asked if they wouldn’t mind doing it on one of our phones so that we could have it and send it to them if they wanted. They replied, in full friendliest of terms, oh don’t worry. I’ll send you my video. I could say we never received it. But maybe they just still haven’t got round to it yet.

Now fully armed with a telescopic tripod, we’re able to film consistently and reliably, and have managed to capture what is now all three performances at Den’s Ramshackle Collective night at the Ten To One Club in Tottenham, which is where we find ourselves again tonight. We’ve really not been on the hustle trail lately because there are other things we want and need to concentrate on, so it’s great to have this regular Tuesday thing we can come to whenever we want and have ten minutes or so on a great platform to do our thing. We’ve not even been looking too much at the residency thing lately either, although we have visited a few bars just to hang out and see how we feel about them. It’s also been kind of an idea to get to know people in the bars and the bar managers and so on, meaning that an approach to maybe playing there would be done in a softer, they know us now, kind of way rather than walking in off the street and doing a street hustle.

Just like last week, Den puts us on last tonight, which again is a fantastic privilege. We’ve decided to do two of our biggest sounding and fastest songs in Make Me Shine and The Cat. However, to throw a surprise in, we’ve decided to open with our most delicate song, Insanity. Yeah. The irony isn’t lost on us that our slowest, gentlest song  among a cacophony of smashers is called Insanity. Of the songs on our upcoming debut album, Insanity is the only slow starting one which doesn’t kick out of the gear in which it begins. We do have a few others like this floating about and waiting in the wings to be added to the repertoire, and a few mid tempo swaying type things, but nothing quite as all out gentle as this one.

As such, it appears our deliberate attempts to surprise worked, as we’re told later, by a few people, that they were waiting in full anticipation for this one to really kick in. But our real surprise is lying in wait and has been deliberately engineered. Having started with such a wonderful gentle thing, as soon as the last notes fade away, Maja charges in with ‘Go!’ And we smash straight into Make Me Shine. This juxtaposition is wild and makes Make Me Shine sound even heavier and more frantic than it usually does. And with our phone recording equipment being out there at the back among the audience, later on we’re able to hear the surprised laughter of shock as we hurtle through our second song.

Out of Make Me Shine and we plunge headlong into another enormous track – The Cat. This one really is full on with attitude, aggression and fun, all rolled into one. It contains one of my favourite chorus lines of ours: ‘I’m gonna rip it up spit it out smash it up I’m living on moonshine.’

We’re really getting to open up our repertoire in here. Three more songs to come next week.

It’s also really great to have found a place such as this which mixes it up more with a lot of comedians using it as a great place to find their voice and cut their teeth. You really can see the improvement in real time in people and that’s great to be a part of. And a few weeks in, it’s also fun to be a bit more familiar with some of the fun songs Den plays to introduce the evening and at various other points in the night. They really do lend themselves to audience participation and she actively encourages it at times. Many of these moments have become kind of our own Ramshackle Collective in-jokes, or whatever you would call them. Knowing her music and singing along to it makes you feel like part of a club. Which is kind of what they’re going for here as they look to build and build. We’re delighted to be playing our little part in that.

And here’s the full show. Insanity, Make Me Shine, The Cat

Day 255

March 19

Back at The Ramshackle Collective at Ten To One in Tottenham. Tomorrow Maja has to go back to Sweden for a few weeks. She possibly should have gone just a little earlier, but she really wanted to play here tonight, so the trip got put off until tomorrow morning.

Ten To One tends to close soon after the Ramshackle Night so to be able to properly meet some people and enjoy the hang as well as the show, it’s better to get in early. And just good to be around for the whole thing, we think. So nice and early tonight and, oh wow. The first thing we see when we walk in is that the place now has a stage. We can’t help but go straight up and stand on it and take in this new perspective. Ant looks up and says, ‘Yeah. We’re a proper music venue now.’ He really is trying to build something here. And with original music venues and venues in general closing down all over London and the UK, to see the trend reversed anywhere, and to see one opening up is priceless. I could say something similar about Tommy at The Marquis. And there’s a solid link between the two here tonight. This stage was put together between last week and this by Ant and Tom McQ, who regularly plays The Marquis. He’s here tonight and we go and catch up with him and Ant now. Between them, we hear of their own event going on in Walthamstow a week Saturday where Tom will be playing a full few sets of his own, and this time all originals. Before his show, and in between, Ant will be DJing. So a chance to see both of them fully doing their thing. Every other show I’ve seen Tom do he’s been in a situation where covers are kind of the thing, although it’s fine to throw some originals in. This will be a different evening so expect all originals. Brilliant. And Ant says that within his DJ sets he’s intending to play more and more original recorded music from upcoming bands. So that’s quite a few new stages, literally, being created in London as stages everywhere are being torn down.

Tom’s not playing here tonight. As a result I think I’m going to claim that tonight, the stage is ours. We don’t finish the show as we have the past two times, but it damn well feels like we do. Host Den has been at a comedy workshop and a bunch of the participants have come down here with her tonight. From here they have to get home to various parts of London and so won’t be staying too late. Den is really keen for them to see us, so asks if we don’t mind going on far earlier than the past few times. Really, we’ll go on when the host wants us to go on. We certainly aren’t taking closing the show for granted. But with the room being more full than we’ve yet seen it, and with so many of the people in it set to leave within the next half hour or so, we really do get the best spot of the night and it certainly feels like a closing set.

Fittingly, although we could have easily changed things around if needed, we’re planning to play two of our heaviest songs tonight with Nobody Said and Give Me The World. In between we’re playing one of those swayers I was talking about last week – Without A Gloria.

Tonight feels like a big show. It’s an open mic night, but our section of it feels like an event. I’ve seen few open mic acts ever get such a reception, and even fewer turn their, er, turn, into an event. It starts even before we begin due to a mistake as I forget to bring Maja’s mic to the stage when I bring my guitar from the back room. She saw me go out back and in all fairness assumed I would just bring the microphone as well. So there we are both on stage and all of a sudden we’re facing an expectant audience. Oh sorry Maja. I forgot your thing. So we have to leave everyone standing there while she goes through the audience to get it. As she starts to return, Ant decides to lead everyone in a steady insistent hand clap which accompanies her all the way back to the stage. With this, by the time she arrives, we are facing a very expectant room. Then she does something I’ve never seen her do before, insisting we’re not starting not beginning until the audience has closed up and moved up and in front of us at the stage. And so they do. From there, we have the room. Totally. And so it is that we get to close the first of the three of tonight’s sections. Brilliant. Job done, we can just go and chill out now and enjoy the rest of the evening. We’ve done our bit now.

Day 266

Saturday March 30

With Maja being in Sweden, I go to Tom’s thing on my own. I did mention it to a friend or two but no-one was able to make it, so here I am. This is happening at the Free Trade Hall in Walthamstow, an area a little further out in zone three, east London.

Ant’s DJ-ing before, in between sets, and after the show, with Tom playing on and off for the whole evening, and playing only his own original material, which is something I’ve not seen him do before. It’s great he’s created his own platform for this. Attendancewise, it looks pretty much full. Like comfortably full for a nightclub vibe. Which is really what it feels like. Ant’s playing all feel good, up tempo danceable songs, staying very much within pop and rock. A good chunk of 80s and 90s in there. And all around you can see people introducing themselves to each other with the room really feeling like something of a community. The kind of all in it together nightclub vibe I haven’t experienced since I don’t know how long, although to be fair, it’s also a long time since I’ve been to an actual nightclub, bars and live music venues having been more my thing since I don’t know when. I mingle a little and chat a bit with this person and that person, or have a quick interaction here and there. A hello to Ant. A quick word in passing with Tom. It’s just a really great night and a wonderful combination of DJ and live.