Julia had been planning a guitarist and drummer she’d met to come along but neither could make it so it’s just us with whoever else comes up. Olly calls Julia to the stage and says I’m coming back, calls up a guitarist and drummer, takes a guitar himself to join us and up we go. The other guitarist is there first as Julia hits the stage. He turns round and, as though it’s completely involuntary, like a reflex action, blurts out, “Oh, you’re beautiful.” Julia just smiles and turns to the audience. Now it’s her show. She shouts out, “Are you ready?” or something like that. She’s taking total control of the room now like I’ve seen her do in Troy. Working the crowd up to get them onside before jumping straight into the first song. While that’s going on, I have two guitarists to teach a song to and I’m literally talking to them behind her back. The song we’re doing is Tina Turner’s Proud Mary. I basically show them the chords and tell them to watch me for the changes but there’s also that big lick that finishes the main riff. Balls. They don’t know how that goes. Well, there simply isn’t time to teach them that and I hadn’t figured on being up here with people who didn’t know it although that might have been half an idea. So I basically have to rewrite that part, on the spot, behind a singer who’s about to go into it as she’s working the crowd, and then get my point across to two guitarists in front of everyone. I declare that we won’t do the rundown. Instead of that, I instantly decide it goes C C A C C A. Then every accent just gets hit on the C before we run back up to the D. Got it guys? They have. Good job because, without looking back, Julia starts into the spoken intro. I join in with her expecting the others to just fall in naturally but then the drummer calls out as discretely as he can, ‘wait for me,’ so I stop. He hits out a four count and we’re all in this time, gently behind the vocals. Then it’s a quick 1-2-3-4 and we’re all full on. Once that starts, well, the crowd is just on it, totally responding to Julia’s calls of Rollin – mic out to the crowd and the call comes back.
All through, the two guitarists are looking at me for the changes and I have to be 100 per cent decisive of how they’re going to happen because there simply isn’t time for any second opinions. I get through that fine but another problem has just popped up. Having played for nearly an hour earlier on and not sure whether Julia was going to come or not, I haven’t done any warm down or warm up. What that means is, playing fast sixteenths as we are now, I’m just not prepared for it. My whole lower arm starts cramping up halfway through the song. Not good. Really not good. I power through and it feels as though my fingers are on autopilot, just keeping on going through the motions even though I’m not quite getting the messages to them. Then Julia calls me for a solo. Oh no. I’m barely managing 16ths here and now I’m about to have to go into 32nds. I think I manage it. Everything’s so frantic up there I’m still not really sure. I think my right hand just did it on its own with no help from me at all.
I come out of the solo as quick as I can. Now, having struggled playing 16ths before I’m now having to do it having played eight bars of 32nds. It really doesn’t feel pretty but I hang on as tight as I can.
There’s one more corner to negotiate. This is when Julia starts doing a full on call and response to the rolling part as we near the end. Now, do we hold the chord or make the usual change? We haven’t rehearsed this part. Hell, we haven’t even spoken about any of it apart from the key. The guitarists are looking at me so I have to call it. I call the change but she keeps on working the crowd with the call and response. Oh well. She’s going to have to come with us now. She does. Without missing a beat. With that, we play through to the end of the song and the crowd erupts. It’s the biggest noise they’ve made all night. Julia just takes it in while the rest of us breathe a sigh of relief and I try to get my right arm and hand working again. But the physically hard part is over. The next song is Rock Me Baby which we’re just going to work slow and sultry through a regular 12 part pattern. That one goes off without any of the drama of Proud Mary and we all hold it together really well as Julia does her thing out front. Then we’re done and we all make our way down. When we do, there are quite a few people who are quick to talk to Julia. More than one say she’s been the best thing all night. One guy says he doesn’t even know where in London he is or how his friends knew about this place, in the back streets as it is. He’s just so happy to have found it and to have seen the performance that’s just happened, among everything else he’s discovered tonight.
I myself give Julia a huge congratulations. She’s come here into the heart of London and nailed it. I tell her what I’ve spoken about in here. OK. It was a performance of less than 10 minutes but the amount of time isn’t important. All that matters is that you’re able to get up and do your thing and be seen to do it. She’s happy with that. We hang out and chat for a while with intermittent wellwishers coming up to say hi, and then she has to be off a little early because she doesn’t have the luxury of nightbuses that I have.
After Julia leaves, there’s still plenty of live music to go. This is a four hour jam session. Into it steps a bass player with not particularly great technique but everything he plays is just right and, when something complicated comes up, he still nails it. And he’s up there totally feeling every single note with the best bass faces of the night. He plays the bass like a guitarist. You know, that style where only the index and middle finger seem to be available to the fretboard. Maybe the ring finger at a push. But he doesn’t play like a guitarist playing the bass. His note choices and rhythm are all what a seasoned bassist would play. This lack of technique on the bass is explained a little when he pops up next on the drums where he looks completely comfortable, again feeling every note and beat and showing it.
With my stage partner now gone and our friendly pilots having exited stage left, I have no-one to leave my stuff with. It was safe down the front of the stage for a while but it got a bit crowded down there so I had to take it away. So now I’m standing just off to the side with what must be a look of some kind of concentration on my face. “Are you OK there mate?” It’s the bass player/drummer guy. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m just trying to figure out how I can go get a pint and then get to the toilet with all these bits and pieces I’ve got here.” “You go mate,” he offers. “I’ll take care of this lot.” Not wanting to take advantage, I rush through the procedures and get back, offering to buy him a drink for his troubles. “That’s fine, but bloody hell that was quick.” Thankyou very much. He asks me what my axe is and I say it’s a Washburn. “You get that sound out of a Washburn?” he exclaims, “Man, you’re good.”
Then he’s off. About ten minutes later he’s back and he gives me a little wave from the bar then signals me to join him and take a seat. This time we do proper introductions. I can’t remember why he says he had to come back but this time when I offer to buy him a drink, no, I insist I do, he accepts. I ask him about his bass playing and how much he plays around the place. He playfully asks why. “Well, your technique is really bad but you play really well. What’s that all about?” “Oh, you’re talking about the left hand thing. Yeah. That’s been said to me before. But I’m not really a bassist.” “So you’re a drummer then?” “Well, not really that either.” He explains that his problem is that he’s too verstatile so people find it hard to pin him down to one instrument and he talks vaguely about this or that tour he’s been on, including a jazz tour. “But you,” he says, “You are a bass player.” “Yes I am.” Well, I can’t disagree can I? He asks how much I play and I tell him a little about what I’m doing and the advice comes back. “Play every jam session you can. But also, find one that works and pay special attention to that one.” The first part, check. As for the second part, I’m really feeling The Blues Kitchen.
“What style do you specialise in?” he asks. “I mean, where are you really comfortable?” I blurt out The Blues which is totally not true but it’s the first thing I can think of, probably because of The Blues Kitchen and probably because I’ve just played around two and a half hours of it in these last two sessions. I then say rock before adding, “Pop. I really like and feel comfortable playing pop.” Then I tell him about my hitjam practice concept where I just put on the top 40 and try to play along instantly to the songs. He really likes it and says he keeps on top of what’s happening by DJing.
“Will I be seeing you around much?” he asks. “As and when work allows,” I tell him, explaining what I’m doing for work and how I manage to fit the jam sessions in. Then he starts to tell me about a few jam sessions I’ve not heard of. Not only that, but he tells me a few hangout places for musicians and in areas you would never think of, including one walking distance from me in quite an unfashionable area. From all the people I’ve been speaking to and the internet searching I’ve done, I’ve not heard of a single place he’s telling me about. Now, I may well be getting ahead of myself here or totally misreading things, but it really feels like a little door is being opened and I’m being invited in. When I’m going to get to some of these places I don’t know but my new friend here seems confident I’ll find them and we’ll meet again. “I’ll see you around,” he says as the night winds to a close we both prepare to leave. No contact details are exchanged and I don’t even consider giving him a card. I’m sure we will be meeting again. Either that or I’ll meet someone who knows him.
marks diaries 