One set of neighbours who attend the Smithy Close meal are also keen music lovers, and since 2007 they have been organising what they call Brindle Rocks. These are house gigs where various singer/songwriters will play their own music to entertain a few guests. Graham organises the musicians, and his partner Janet, and a few other neighbours cook some food for the 30 to 40 people who turn up with their own drinks and pay typically £10 for the evening’s entertainment. The musicians are rarely famous, but simply deserve to be. Each concert is unique, but a common factor is the absolute silence as each artist performs. This contrasts to live music in pubs which tends to be accompanied by chatter and the clink of glasses which spoils the atmosphere. In 2009, Geraldine and I attended Brindle Rocks XI (the 11th concert, for the non-Romans reading this). Prior to this, we were a little wary of what went on across the road three or four times a year. We have attended most concerts since then, and the last one was Brindle Rocks XLII with Dean Friedman. OK, Dean is pretty famous, having had several hit records in the late 70s (Lucky Stars, Ariel, Woman of Mine). Gee and I saw him live at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012 and thought that he would go down well in Brindle. When I mentioned it to Graham, he agreed, and set about arranging the concert. It took a while, but he managed it, having to wait until suitable dates aligned with Dean’s regular visits to the UK (he lives in New Jersey). It was a great concert, and wonderful to meet Dean. That’s one of the best things about the concerts, the artists are more than happy to chat about their music and the inspiration behind it. We often don’t get away until one or two o’clock chatting to people.
I have always been interested in music, which I believe has come from my dad who was a part time professional musician. He was a singer for several dance bands in his early years, and still sang and played when I was growing up. He played double bass usually, but could also play violin. I remember him going off to concerts on a Saturday night trying to fit his bass in the back of vehicles that were rather too small. He even used to ride on his bike to some venues, with his bass strapped to his back! Dad had a lovely tenor voice, and since he and Mum sang in the church choir, it was natural that I joined them. I never really enjoyed it, but it was all I remember from the earliest age. Apparently, my siblings and I have all cut our teeth (literally) peeping out through the cut-outs of the choir balcony at St Chad’s church. I was never any good at playing music, although I did learn the clarinet to grade IV at school.
Although I can read music, it doesn’t come naturally. Laurence, however, appears to have inherited this talent from his granddad, sight reading effortlessly. He has been a member of the Brindle Brass Band since 2007 starting with the cornet, moving briefly onto a baritone horn, but is now playing B♭tuba although upon picking up the instrument, he felt that he’d been banished to the graveyard of the bass section, never to return. He’s also miffed that the instrument weighs about as much as a fridge, and the band do a lot of marching. I’m sure he’ll get used to it.
When I started at St Mary’s, there was an excellent music department, and I quickly joined the school choir. In 1971, a new music teacher, Mr Rose, had great ambitions for the school, and in my first year, I was part of a group who performed Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at my first speech night. Mum, who had previous experience of school music, later said her heart fell when she read on the bill that there would be a ‘pop cantata’ in the second half lasting twenty minutes. It turned out to be a marvellous show, despite it being performed by a school orchestra, and a boys’ choir largely comprising 2nd years. The performance was so well received, that we repeated it a few more times, even having Radio Blackburn record it for us. This recording was made into a 10” record which I still have, although I can no longer play it. I played clarinet in the school military band, finally reaching first clarinet, but my musical career stopped in 1975 when I handed back my loaned instrument and left school. I have often considered taking up music again, but it hasn’t happened yet. Although…
In the early days of Laurence playing with Brindle Band, I would regularly drive him to rehearsals and performances and in doing so, I got to know the other band members very well. One Saturday in June I was asked at 8am whether I was attending the Garstang carnival that morning. A positive reply then led to a sentence starting with “You can say no if you like, but…”. I’m a sucker for anything like that, and so after a 5 minute rehearsal in the car park, I found myself replacing the absent bass drummer leading the band on a 2 hour march round town with hundreds of people watching and listening. It was surprisingly good fun, since I had received comprehensive instructions beforehand: just march normally, and every time you put your left foot down, hit the drum. There’s slightly more to it than that, but not much. Stopping and starting are the worrying bits because everyone follows the drummer – oh dear! I was asked to play at the Lytham carnival later that year, so I couldn’t have been that bad. I’ve since ‘performed’ at competitions in Kirkby Lonsdale and Darwen, and the band won a trophy each time. If only the drum wasn’t so loud.
Gee and I used to go to concerts in the late 70s and early 80s and have seen several people who were famous in their day. These concerts were at local venues: Preston Guildhall, Blackburn King George’s Hall, Southport Floral Hall, etc.) and were very enjoyable. I can’t remember everyone we saw, but the list certainly includes Leo Sayer, Barbara Dickson, The Stylistics, 10cc, The Oldham Tinkers (do they count?), Mike Harding, Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, the Hallé orchestra, Shakatak, Al Stewart… Quite an eclectic mixture, I think you’ll agree.
For my birthday present in 1984, we decided to see George Benson (Give me the Night), a favourite singer of mine, who was playing at the Birmingham NEC Arena (now the Genting Arena). We had paid quite a lot for the tickets which included a coach trip from Chorley, but this trip turned out to be our last major concert because I hated it. We sat in raked seats (rather than the flat area in front of the stage, but we were so far back that we could hardly see anything. Candi Staton (Young Hearts Run Free) was the support and whilst she was OK, we could only see what she looked like by watching the huge TV screens set up beside the stage. At that distance, she looked to be smaller than the size of your thumb when your arm is outstretched.
When George Benson was due on the stage, a very stern American came out and told everyone in the auditorium that “Mr Benson will not appear until everyone is seated”. Of course, people ignored this request, and nothing happened for half an hour or so, time, which I guess was subtracted from ‘Mr Benson’s’ set. When he eventually graced us with his presence, I was still quite annoyed, but ready for a great show. However, as soon as he walked onto the stage, everyone in the arena stood up, forcing me also to stand throughout the performance. Even though the seats were raked, they were insufficiently steep for me to see over the heads of the tall people in front. I could catch glimpses of George by watching the TV screens, but they were not like today’s HD screens; the image was colour drenched and very grainy. I must say that the music was superb, just like listening to a CD. But that was the problem: I had a CD at home, and could have listened to him there with much less fuss and aggravation. I haven’t been to a large concert since. I don’t blame George Benson for this, but I fail to understand the attraction of such a huge venue. If I can’t see the artist’s expression as they sing, I don’t want to go. At Brindle Rocks, we joke that those in the front row are in the ‘spit zone’, but this doesn’t put people off.
(That’s my bald head, bottom right!)
As an aside to this anecdote, I was visiting the NEC with the children twenty years later and told them this story about coming here to see George Benson, not expecting them to know who he was, when Emily said, “Do you mean him?” whilst pointing at a billboard. Sure enough, there was a poster advertising George Benson’s forthcoming concert at the NEC that year!
I had been building up an extensive record collection since 1975, and by 1980, I realised that I really needed a better system on which to hear them. I discovered that a colleague at work was considering upgrading his system, and so I began a protracted period of negotiation to persuade him to sell me his entire hi-fi equipment. At that time, it wasn’t considered cool to buy a sound system in a single device. Each element had to be purchased separately to hear the best sound and so in my case, I let Greg Rostron do all the research in 1978/79 and sell it all to me 18 months later. He had selected a Pioneer record deck (with a Shure stylus), Sansui amplifier, Pioneer tape deck and of course Wharfedale Glendale XP3 speakers (on AVF stands). The sound was terrific, and I never felt the need to upgrade the system during the time I owned it apart from buying a Marantz CD player not long after they were invented. I was the first person I knew with a CD player, buying it for £199 in November 1986. One of the first albums I bought was Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms which everyone bought with their first CD player. I still have some bits of the original system in the loft, but most has been thrown away, or sold on eBay.
I think that I owned over 150 albums by 1982 when I virtually stopped buying music. I don’t remember it being a conscious decision, but I think I realised that buying 20-30 albums per year wasn’t sustainable, and so I just stopped. Another reason could have been the dire state of popular music in the 1980s. People in the 1970s may have had no fashion sense, but they certainly knew their music. Paying off rather a large mortgage may also have influenced my decision. When I first bought a CD player, I obviously bought a few CDs, but soon afterwards, a small company set up in Chorley offering to loan the latest CD releases for a few pence a week. It operated in the same way that Lovefilm did years later with DVDs, and I subscribed for several years.
It’s odd, but I can remember most of the music from the 1970s, and sing along to many of the tracks (don’t worry, I shan’t do it!), but by the mid 1980s, after the New Romantics had become outdated, I entirely lost interest. The rivalry between Oasis and Blur passed me by, and I completely missed the emergence of Take That.
I think it was probably going to Brindle Rocks that rekindled my interest in contemporary music, especially when it became socially acceptable to admit to liking folk music once more. I’m not sure that artists like Ed Sheeran, Passenger, George Ezra and Jake Bugg would like me to classify them as ‘folk’ singers, but to my ears, folk must certainly have had a huge influence on their music. Nowadays, I’m very keen on bands you’ve probably never heard (but should), such as the Moulettes, Henry Priestman (formerly of the Christians), Katzenjammer (a three-piece female Norwegian band), Harp and a Monkey, the Ragamuffins and Ezio. If you haven’t listed to any of these, your homework is to seek them out on YouTube. I can provide a playlist if required.
When I decided to replace my hi-fi with a smaller system, I bought an integrated Denon CD / DAB receiver / amplifier with Bose speakers in around 2004. This is the size of a small cereal packet, gives terrific sound and is still going strong, although it is now re-sited in my study. It doesn’t have the window-rattling volume of the separate units, but the clarity and the presence in the music is terrific. Nowadays, all music is on line, and my 4000+ tracks are found on an iPod the size of a credit card. (Have you ever wondered why the guests on Desert Island Discs don’t ask for a fully loaded iPod as their luxury item?) But I’m now being told that an iPod is old-fashioned, and I should subscribe to Spotify. Maybe I should, but I’m simply not ready yet.
