a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

Ozzy...bless

Funny to catch glimpses of Ozzy being "rehabilitated" as a resident of the Chat Show Couch...

...we loved this clip, especially the look-alikie who genuflects (about 12 seconds in).

Creaky boat blues...

An article that is sadly too late to go into our Annual Report...

S. said

"I've never been to a gig before by a band I haven't really listened to".

S. said

"I've never been to a gig before with a Vicar/Pastor/Church leader".

We arrived at the Good Ship Thekla and prepared to set sail...(having checked to see if there were any lifeboats)

I loved Bowles and Bailey, and their song about missing Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Pop Festival ("we'll see him another time" - Jimi dead 4 weeks later) had me in fits...

The Duke was brilliant and I sang pretty much every word!

...and it was quite an interesting venue with feet dangling from the balcony above us. He played for the best part of an hour and 45 minutes with a whole mix of songs including some stuff about the films of Hector Mann.

The second encore had the band playing acoustic a couple of feet in front of us...

What a great end to the day!

S. said

"I think that was one of the best gigs I've been to".

Update on guitars

I posted a photo of my set up now I have got my old pedalboard working again. I had to order a couple of cables for my power supply.

I've found a few more bits tucked away but has anybody seen the power unit for my Whammy pedal?

My guitar set up

As I have mentioned it and finally got as many bits out of old stackerboxes as I can find here is my current pedal setup in all its glory. I have been buying bits for years and always feel guilty about frittering money away on useless bits of junk - but look at it all plugged in!

As well as an admirable quantity of the usual Clergy study clutter you can see various lovely sounding goodies all up and running and demanding that I stop typing any second mow and go and plug the old Les Paul in. Doesn't it look great? And it sounds wonderful - lots of sounds and combinations (carefully placed Distortion and Flanger next to each other so I can switch them both on at the same time).

Where would we be without music?

I love music. I can't imagine life without music. I can recall the epiphany of discovering The Beatles (thank Andy) in the early 70s as I moved out of the shadow of my Dad's musical preferences (one such album here - you have to listen to Delilah - the boys think it is hysterical). On top of this was being bought a guitar for my 14th or 15th birthday, and then playing every day for years. I have made an executive decision and set up my Les Paul, several pedals and my Fender Amp in the study - I apologise to the Administrator and Wedding Couples as they trip over cables and struggle to find space to put a chair down, but you have to have some priorities!

I was chuffed that Neil Tennant has spoken out about Simon Cowell and X Factor - churned out woh-woh-wooaaah-woh-woh power ballads - "what have we done to deserve this?", as Neil might sing. Perhaps one common theme across my diverse musical collection as I spin the wheel of fortune on my iPod is a sense of albums made with a strong thread of desire to make a sound, either from song-writers able to express emotions and describe life to those who make music that changes my soul as I listen to it. There are some artists who mine a similar vein of music across decades of music making (Jeff Beck, for example) but who are far from limited, and those who from one album to another, or even across a single CD, can change styles and yet still achieve an identity (somebody like Elvis Costello, for example). Some of the albums I come back to most often seem to have an atmosphere about them that makes the break between songs a thin membrane - Amnesiac by Radiohead springs to mind - I don't claim to understand them, but they are something to behold to listen to.

I wish I could do that - but I can't - no matter how much money I dream of frittering on guitar pedals or software for my iMac.

The power balled has also intruded into the worship arena too. I was reading how variations on the song "Shout to the Lord" were used by American Idol which presumably indicates that, just like Cohen's Hallelujah, it fitted into the mould of commercially acceptable bland-but-allowing-the-performer-to-express-their-deepest-emotions style. I'm not sure I agree with everything the man said yesterday in his analysis of the large worship venue being counter-cultural. I actually would say the opposite. He said that the big top at Soul Survivor type event was not something which relates directly to a non-Christian's experience because of the amount of singing, but when I go to a gig I would actually feel LESS self-conscious about singing along, moving with the beat and having hands in the air than I would at New Wine or similar. Probably this is because in a worship environment I am also trying to be aware of things outside the music, whereas at the Red Hot Chilis there isn't the same dynamic - the music in that moment is it all.

In a worship environment sometimes the weakest moments are when the band take on a style which doesn't sit comfortably, and often resort to simply copying a well known performer (trying to recall the album its on where there's a dead rip off of The Edge's echo style) "just to show we can rock with the best of them". I wish I was a better guitarist and could do this myself, though...

Born too late...

If you can't remember the 60s then you weren't there, man...

...or you were there but instead watched John Noakes on Blue Peter.

As I sit here on a cold December morning trying to have ideas up my sleeve for various versions of the Christmas story I am listening to Wish you were here by Pink Floyd, and wishing I was there - locked away in a studio in the South of France for 6 months making a concept album.

Mitch Mitchell

I was saddened to hear of the death of Mitch Mitchell overnight, the drummer with The Jimi Hendrix Experience through those three classic albums. I really loved his cross-over rock and jazz style. I am driving for a couple of hours today, so might have to play some Hendrix just to hear Mitch at his best.

Moments like this always reminds me of an old friend Dave who was so saddened to hear at work one morning that Roy Orbison had died that he had to go home, where he stayed and played Roy's records well into the night...

One of the things I loved most about the many Jimi Hendrix live albums was the way that you can hear the drums not being played by Mitch, but being played (as it were) by the volume and proximity of Jimi's Marshall stack. If it ever goes belly up I will try to make a guitar pedal with about 12 knobs on it, 4 banks of three, and each bank providing a knob for pitch, volume and "rattliness" so that when your guitar hits a certain note at a reasonable volume then the pedal would recreate that sound of Mitch's kit rattling.

Can I copyright an idea like that - you know, just in case?

The Guillemots

were excellent - really enjoyed a gig, even if I begrudged myself the time because I was working early the next day, but not to enjoy stuff like this is to give in to naff models of Church where all we do is work.

They didn't play Clarion or Cockateels, but a great set with loads of energy and quite a bit of humour and banter. The lighting was a bit weird, though. I can only assume that because the stage was small there wasn't much lighting pointing back at the band, so most of the time they were silhouettes. Great to see musicians swapping places and instruments and making a great sound.

Going gigging

The Guillemots are in town tonight, so looking forward to going with others to see them. Red has been one of my big listens over the last three or four months, so its going to be good!

Alphabet of music - the rest...

So the final albums, either played or decided upon are...

S had to be Songs From The Deep Forest (Duke Special). There are lots of S's it could have been, but I couldn't chose anything else really as this is my most played album in donkey's years.

T was Through The Window Pane (Guillemots - had to fit them in somewhere)

U could have been one of several, but I plumped for Under The Blacklight (Rilo Kiley) just because it was a bit different from anything else I'd played. I do like that guitar based poppy stuff sometimes.

V was Victory For The Comic Muse (Divine Comedy) as Neil Hannon had to get in there somewhere.

W is playing at the moment and could have been World Without Tears (Lucinda Williams), but instead I opted for West (Lucinda Williams), that aching voice...

X has to be X&Y (Coldplay) by default, but its not a bad album for all that.

Y will have to be Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Flaming Lips) as I couldn't have nothing by them, although I prefer The Soft Bulletin slightly.

I have no albums at all starting with the letter Z, and so I am going to allow myself a bit of a wildcard cheat and play a random Zappa album. There could be several as I don't have one favourite from the many, many albums of his that I own. It might be either The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life or Make A Jazz Noise Here, or just good old Hot Rats. Only time will tell...