Day 638

Saturday April 12

A few weeks ago, I just bumped into an old acquaintance on a train. Joei from the Camden band Bless. He told me about a kind of old skool club night he was playing tonight in Hackney. So we’ve come. Called Indie Amnesty, it’s billed as the best Indie disco since 2008. And it’s fully interactive. An actual show with Joei and Alex, his female partner in all this, dancing up on the stage and coming down and dancing with all of us. This is a paid night in, and they really go that extra mile to make it worth it.

In among all this they play one of our tracks – Rock’n’Roll Tree. Blasted out in a proper nightclub. With us dancing all round the place and telling anyone who’s orbit we manage to even touch that this is us.

It’s all a really great night, and when we get home, we truly feel like we’ve just got in from a great gig that we’ve actually played. 

Day 639

Sunday April 13

We’ve come up with a variant on the Now Hustle. We’re calling it the Consent Hustle. Whereas the Now Hustle was us going into bars, often non-music bars and asking to play there and then, the new idea now is to try to build up our own network of bars in which we can play pretty much now and then on a regular/irregular ad-hoc basis. No set schedule, no advertising, and playing just to the people who happen to be there when we turn up. It might be a big ask, but ideally we’re looking for bars where we can just turn up when we feel like it. If that became a thing, we’d probably be looking at around three to four weeks between performances, unless of course we get contacted and asked to play, in which case we’re there. As with the Now Hustle, this will be the ten to fifteen minute thing. So three to five songs. But with pre consent. Hence, the Consent Hustle. Within this, there’s also the hope and possibility that bars will also play our recordings over their system while we’re there, or we could take the opportunity and play one two through ours. 

Just a quick thought or two on this as a concept. 

I know anyone who ever got up at an open mic has this. They’re playing their own songs to people who have never heard them before. But I wonder if you’ve ever really contemplated how difficult this actually is. It’s what we’ve done everytime we’ve ever stood up to begin a Now Hustle in a bar totally unaccustomed to original music. 

At least at an open mic, or on original music scenes, people are there to hear something, well, original. But to your average audience of punters? I’ve just come across this next thing and am going to take liberties and quote quite freely from it, although I will be skipping parts of the passage. It’s from Spandau Ballet bass player Martin Kemp’s 80s memoir. I’ve read his autobiography. His brother Gary’s too – Gary was the guitarist and songwriter of Spandau Ballet. But this new book is just about their 80s experience. Just in case you’re not aware, Spandau Ballet was one of the biggest acts in the biggest decade of pop. Here’s Martin writing about their experience of Live Aid in 1985.

‘Then we made our fatal mistake. Gary uttered the words that no crowd likes to hear, but rock bands never seem to learn.

“This next song…is a new one.”

‘It was such a stupid schoolboy error to try and debut a new track at Live Aid. I don’t know what possessed us to do it…audiences just don’t know what to do with themselves when you play new material. They just have to stand there and absorb it. Endure it. It’s always a bit of an indulgence to do this, even in your own full length concert. But in a three song set at a benefit gig?’

Yeah. That’s what a member of one of the biggest bands of the 80s felt like when they tried to play an unknown song live for the first time. That’s what we have to moxy-up and stare down when we go out every single time. Even right at the beginning, before we had any songs at all, we had decided this was what we were going to do. Walk into random bars who had never seen us before and play them nothing but our own originals. Which meant that right from the beginning we would have to write big, catchy tunes that could capture and hold the attention of a completely cold audience. Right from the beginning we planned to do what every band says is the one thing you do not do. Play new material. With no covers. Around 20 years ago I was asked if my own band at the time could do a gig. When I asked the guy if he knew that we were an originals only band. he said, ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise that. No. Not for this crowd. Even if The Beatles turned up and played a bunch of their new songs they’d be booed out of the place.’ Well, that’s the kind of audience we play to. All the time. And sometimes we get called for encores.

Day 641

Tuesday April 15

Our first meeting of The Consent Hustle is with Freddie, manager of The Prince Albert, a Camden bar on the road out to Kings Cross. He’s quietly encouraging and says he’s happy to give it a go. Brilliant. Can’t ask for more than that. We can’t do our come and play whenever we want though. He wants at least some kind of organisation in place. Fair enough. We might have our own ideas, but bar managers will have theirs as well and I think if we’re to get anywhere with any of them it will be a bit like this. Until we maybe get established in a bar, then we might just start to get a bit of a freer rein. No way of knowing really. We’ve never done this before. Actually, I’m not aware of anyone having done this before. This really is totally new territory. Breaking new ground. Freddie says we can do some Mondays, when there is nothing else on in the bar. Which means that if he has something scheduled that Monday for later in the evening, we can’t just go in in the afternoon or early evening and do our thing. No. He wants one night, one event. Again, totally fair enough. He also wants at least a day’s notice by email. With that, we say we can confirm now and come in this Monday coming. He’s up for that. This will not necessarily be the start of a regular thing. Let’s do one, he says, and see how we go. All very cool and again, we couldn’t have asked for more. In any venue really, you do your first one and see if you can get a booking to come back. So thankyou Freddie. Prince Albert, we are on.

Day 643

Thursday April 17

We have no idea what this means or what to expect. But we have managed to book ourselves onto our first book fair. We were able to grab the very last available stand for the Indie Author Book Fair at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire on Sunday May 4.

Day 647

Monday April 21

We walk into the Prince Albert for our first Consent Hustle show with no idea of what to expect. Again, kind of the whole point. Well, we’re not expecting this. We walk into a bar that’s hosting a child’s birthday party. Full on child. We’re talking nine or ten years old here. There are also a few people at the bar having just a normal few pints hang out. We go and say hi to Freddie and tell him that we’re all good to carry on. We can do this. And so we do. We start with an ever so slightly mild, but still rocky, version of Rock’n’Roll Tree. We follow this with I Really Like Koalas, a wonderful piece of repertoire to have in your pocket to fall back on for this kind of situation. We do have a few other quite lovely kid friendly songs coming up. There’s Baked Honey, but that’s not quite ready for live yet. Then the same is true of a couple of sibling songs called The Alphabets and The Alphabet Song – not to be confused with The Alphabets. And also fully formed and written, but still in pre season training is A Hundred And One Ways To Fly. 

But what we have to hand right now also works, and those two songs get a great reaction from the kids, and from the few people at the bar. With that, Maja makes the wise suggestion that we should call it at two. We are playing to very short attention spans to be fair, and also, let’s not gatecrash a kids’ party too much. I think if nothing else, this has demonstrated us to be very versatile and able to respond to any situation we find as we walk in.

After that we go and say hello to the guys at the bar who tell us they loved what they heard. And Freddie is quietly happy enough to try it again sometime. But fast forward and we have an unfortunate clash of Mondays when we get to what was always planned to be a few weeks later and see if we can go again. A whole series of bank holidays, booked functions for the bar, and even the King’s birthday, have taken care of a whole few months of Mondays, our only available day in here. Freddie suggests we have another look sometime in June. But then in June, Maja goes to Sweden until mid July, so Diarieworld really does totally ramp down for a while.

Day 648

Tuesday April 22

Paul is in town and staying with us for a few days. His first visit since we moved to London. He’s met Maja once. On the day of the last entry in what is now our debut book from these Diaries – Music, Love and Impossibilities. The day before that was the ridiculously climactic and epic penultimate entry, which was why we were in London and available to meet Paul for that flying visit in the first place. Tonight is a restaurant visit and an all round catchup as Paul and Maja are also able to get to know each other a little better. And in massively more relaxed circumstances than the last time.

Day 649

Wednesday April 23

Today is the first day of being out on the streets to try to speak to bar managers and to introduce them to us and the Consent Hustle. Yes, we’ve already made a contact with The Prince Albert, but that happened when we were casually out and about one evening. Today is the first day of actually going out on a dedicated hustle run. For now, as you may well expect, we’re concentrating on our home town of Camden and we have an idea of what bars we want to have a look at. But as with many such hustle days, there’s barely a manager in sight, so little gets done. However, I do get to speak to one manager in one of the bars at the top end of our wish list. He loves the idea and says he can’t decide if it’s crazy or genius. However, he would like it if we could fit a little into what he’s planning musically, while still hopefully staying at least somewhat true to our own concept. That works. We’re totally happy to fit into a manager’s vision; if nothing else, The Consent Hustle is a great way to open a conversation and put our cards on the table, which is exactly what’s happening here. It’s a bit of an open ended question as to when, as this bar hasn’t properly started doing music yet, but I think we can be happy that we’re on their radar.

Onto tonight and it’s Paul’s treat as we go out for Maja’s first ever West End musical – Back To The Future. This is an amazing night out and really like watching the film right in front of you in live action. A few differences from the film, quite possibly out of theatrical difficulties, but wow, they really manage to make the car look like it’s moving 88 miles an hour on a static stage. As we leave and head out back on the street, I say  that’s the most impressive effect I’ve ever seen in a theatre. But as I haven’t seen many theatre shows, I have to admit that’s really not saying much. The next day I read a review from someone who has, because it’s his actual job, been to a lot of theatre shows. He says that’s the most impressive effect he’s ever seen in a theatre

Day 660

Sunday May 4

Here we are. Book Fair day. We have absolutely no idea what to expect, and what a great day it is. Think community hall second hand market, but instead of all kinds of car-boot sale kinds of things, it’s people’s books that are on display and on sale. This is actually a small to medium sized theatre in a town in Cambridgeshire – Huntingdon, and we’re delighted to discover we’ve been given a pitch on the side front of the stage overlooking everything. Which also means that our own backdrop, which we put right on the edge of the stage looking out, can be seen from everywhere. This is an independent authors’ book fair and we get around and talk to almost every author in there, and a few drop by and check us out. And we make enough sales to pay for our train travel for the day. Really couldn’t have asked for any more. A hugely fun and encouraging day. The only mild blip was that there was no after event bar meetup. We were really kind of hoping we might be able to get ourselves up to play at that if it had happened, and a few people were making similar enquiries of us. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Day 664

Thursday May 8

Out to a few bars today to see what interest I can rustle up for our Consent Hustle idea. I manage to speak to three actual managers. One is quietly amenable to the idea but would like an introductory email so he can have a proper look at and think about it. Fair enough. One says yes, he’d love to see what we could do in his place. He just happens to be away for a little while from the next day or two, so this is left hanging with the thought that we will drop in at some point after he’s back and see how to get the ball rolling. OK. And one guy immediately says yes, he’s happy to give it a go and see what happens. It’s agreed that we’ll come along this Monday and see how we go – in the event, this ends up not happening until the Monday after, May 19. So in all, gently encouraging.

Then there’s one other manager at an iconic venue we’d love to get involved with who loves the idea and says he can’t see why it wouldn’t work, or why it shouldn’t at least be given a chance to. Wow. Brilliant. Just like that, we’re in. Until he says that he’s not the man to talk to at all. He just looks after the bar, has nothing to do with the music. Oh. He gives me a name and an email address, adding that the person in question does drop in during the day sometimes, so maybe we or I could too at some point. OK. I’ve pretty much lost all faith in the usefulness of email as any kind of communication tool – especially unsolicited. No-one ever ever replies anymore, and I kinda get it with all the spam, and I know I’m not alone in this. And I don’t think social media is much better or more useless really at this point. But OK. I’ll send the email and maybe try to catch the guy when he’s around. I’m writing this in August and am still waiting for a reply. OK. A reply hasn’t come. And I won’t even say yet. I stopped waiting a while ago. I’ve lost all faith in the usefulness of email. Do you remember when almost overnight it changed the world as we knew it? Once again, it’s increasingly difficult to play live – which is why we’ve developed our own workarounds which are also far from easy to get off the ground, although we remain hopeful some kind of lift off will happen eventually. And so much of everything has moved onto social media and virtual platforms. Which have ceased to work in the way they maybe once did. They certainly don’t work in ways we kind of still want to believe they do. The new frontier? Well, the new frontier is broken and the old frontier – hey, because there’s a new frontier, right? – has been pretty much burned down and is being almost gleefully dismantled by the day. Hey, we’re all online now, and all life is there now, right? How’s that working out for everyone?

Day 667

Sunday May 11

We’ve been massively intrigued about an upcoming bar nearby and it’s now finally opened. Or rather, reopened under new management. Called The Corner Lock, we’ve been getting teased by this for a while and we can now see what it has become. It was formerly All About Eve, the first Camden bar we played when we were living in Shoreditch and saw they had an open mic. It became something of a regular thing for us for a little while. Today we’re wandering Camden Market and thinking of going to one of the canalside bars in there. Then, while walking across the wonderful footbridge over the canal, we see in the mild distance that The Corner Lock is actually open. Oh wow. We have to go. We just have to.

Inside and they’re showing football. First result. We also get chatting immediately to a long standing Camden local who is just blown away by our book when he sees it and insists on buying a copy and getting it signed. Along with that, we feel a really good and quick connection with the barman who’s on now, and with the assistant manager. And Maja finds herself in a long chat with the manager, and deliberately avoids mentioning The Diaries to him. This is just a get-to-know-you chat. And, we think, all the more effective for not shoving our project right onto him. But we’re very much up front with it with the assistant manager and the other barman on today. Through all this, we’re informally invited to come back on Saturday night and possibly play after the Eurovision final. No guarantee, but we feel the door has well and truly opened for us in here. After all the anticipation, all our hopes and expectations have been far exceeded. What we’re really looking for is a place we could make our own. Could this really, really be it? Very early days, but hey, the door is open. That, and we then head off on a Camden bar crawl with our new friend with the signed book.

Day 669

Tuesday May 13

A bunch of in person library visits today as I hit a bunch of central libraries of London boroughs. I follow this up the following week on Wednesday. By the time I’ve finished that, we’re in almost 40 London libraries with the boroughs of Islington and Southwark added to Camden Borough; each borough contains between 10 and 15 libraries, and to get in one library in a borough means you are now on the database and available to order in every library in that borough. And a whole bunch of other people I meet in other libraries show strong, positive interest and they may well come on board in the coming weeks.