Rob Russell Davies: My World 2010 #5
Rob Russell Davies: My World 2010 #5:
WELCOME!
Hi from me once again and welcome to another edition of my newsletter. This one’s coming from South Africa where the temperatures are steadily rising, while I hear news that they’re rapidly falling back in the UK. Hopefully for all our sakes, it doesn’t get too cold there or too hot here!
A few people have asked where my home from home is in South Africa. Well, most of my time is spent in a little mining town called Stilfontein (Still Fountain) in the North West Province which is close to the city of Klerksdorp and is quite near to the university city of Pochestroom. All in all we’re about a 2 hours drive from Johannesburg.
Sunsets can be quite spectacular around here, and I walked down to the end of our road the other day, where you have a clear view towards Klerksdorp, and took a few snaps. Here’s my favourite:
Stilfontein Tree at Sunset
NEWS
I’ve recently put together some slide show movies which can be seen on YouTube and other websites. Watching the dramatic Chilean Miner’s rescue, I suddenly realised that I was sitting on the perfect tribute song for the miners and their rescuers: ‘Gumboots: The Miner’s Song.’ It tells the story of a South African miner trapped in one of the deepest mines on Earth praying to hear the sound of his rescuers gumboots. For those of you wondering what gumboots are – they’re the same as Wellington boots.
So although my Miner’s Song has a South African twist, it still tells an international story – that of miners trapped underground and their eventual rescue, which seemed to be very relevant to what was going on in Chile. I rushed to the computer and began digging up pictures of the rescue, synched them up to the song, and uploaded the video onto YouTube as quickly as possible. The timing was right, the events were unfolding on TV screens all over the world, and for once, there was a happy ending. Within the first 48 hours the video had a few hundred views and then settled down to clock up a fair number every day. Obviously it’s lost some momentum as the story has faded from the headlines, but is still doing well and has recently gone well over 1050 views.
That helped me to begin figuring out how to use the Windows Movie Maker program, and within a few days I decided to have a go at linking pictures to a few of my other songs. Next, I took some of my favourite Cape Town and Cape Peninsula pictures from a recent holiday and blended them in with a piano piece called ‘Downstream’ from my Pianoscapes album. This ones got a laid back and peaceful feel to it, and I think the piano melody and Cape scenery go well together.
In the week leading up to Armistice day and Remembrance Sunday I started working on another video idea which I’ve had in my mind for some time. The Tipperary Song tells the story of a WW1 soldier blinded in the fields of Flanders. An Irish Nurse helps him through this terrible time and always keeps his spirits up by singing the famous ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ song. They lose contact after she is sent back to help on the front line, but at the end of the war, the soldier, believing that she is actually from Tipperary, makes his way to the little Irish Town to see if he can find her.
The Tipperary Song: A Tribute for Armistice Day and Remembrance Day
This story, obviously suitable for Armistice day and Remembrance Sunday, really lends itself to pictures and so I got to work finding hundreds of different photos from that era to fit the plot of the song. It took a couple of days hard work, and was more difficult to put together than the previous videos in that I was actually trying to tell the story in pictures. But I think the whole thing has worked out well, and hopefully you’ll like it too!
It’s had over 380 views on YouTube already, and I’ve also linked it to a few Armistice day / Remembrance day Facebook pages where it’s getting a lot of plays.
Links to all 3 videos below and if you’re signed up to YouTube you can also add your own comments – hopefully nice ones!
Chilean Miners: A Tribute Song. Gumboots (The Miner’s Song)
The Cape of Good Hope: Featuring DOWNSTREAM from Pianoscapes
Armistice Day / Remembrance Day Tribute: The Tipperary Song
(All links open in a new window)
As I’m away, there are no live gigs for me or the Duelling Pianos in November, but December’s gig sheet for Leeds and the surrounding area is included at the end of this newsletter.
HORRORS ON ARRIVAL
I don’t like to paint too bleak a picture of the club and pub circuit in the North of England. After all, many times you arrive to find a cracking club, helpful people running it and appreciative audiences. A lot of it, of course is also down to the act’s own attitude, professionalism and talent… and the people in charge usually recognise a job well done and treat you accordingly. But, every now and again a few things do go wrong, and quite often, it’s when you first arrive, or during the first hour or so, that you have to deal with the problems.
So with my tongue wedged firmly in cheek, and a little nudge and wink of the eye… these are:
The 10 things to look out for when arriving at Clubs and Pubs in the UK.
1: The Impossible to Find!
You’d be surprised how skilfully some clubs are hidden away. Recent inventions like Sat Navs have improved things, but even then, I sometimes still get hopelessly lost. (As many of you will probably know… Sat Navs are far from being a perfect science!)
One memory that springs to mind is when a duo I was in got lost in Hull. We searched for over an hour for a pub, all the time getting more and more confused. Eventually giving up any hope of making it on time, we stopped at the nearest pub to ask directions for the main motorway back home… only to find that it was the pub we were supposed to be playing in! (We started playing over an hour late, but the landlord was happy enough by the end of the night to still pay us our full wage!)
2: The loader!
Some architects really should be shot! You can’t image where some venues put their stages and expect the acts to get to them. Stairs can be a nightmare especially those steep slippery outside fire escape ones you sometimes have to negotiate. I’ve heard a few nasty tales though the grapevine of people falling down them – closely followed by their own heavy equipment.
We played a club in Hartlepool once where you pulled the van up next to a brick wall, loaded over the wall, went down a grubby passage into a tiny service lift (not big enough to fit human beings – well maybe dwarfs), met your gear upstairs, walked with it across a massive back stage area to finally set it up. A full marathon – took us hours!
I did another solo job once when I arrived to find what looked like a rickety version of those golf cars ready to transport my gear over a rough dirt track down to a riverside cafe type venue. The thing looked positively dangerous and I simply got back in my car and went home!
3. The Double-Booking!
You turn up to find another act already there. Or worse… and something that happened to me once… you arrive, set all your gear up, sound check… and then another act turns up and you’re informed that it’s their gig. So you have to take it all down, reload it back in the van, and go home with nothing in your pocket!
4: The Noise Limiter!
Usually some neighbour with a grudge has put in noise complaints against the venue, and the environmental health department has come in and installed one of these devices, or insisted that the club installs one.
A noise limiter – this one for example, goes from green to red the louder you get, and once all the lights are lit for a few seconds it switches off all the on-stage plugs.
The first problem with noise limiters is that you end up watching the lights all night, rather than worrying about your act or the audience. Secondly, if you do trip the power it’s a nightmare having to race across the stage to turn down the volumes on your speakers to avoid a potentially disastrous power surge through them when the power suddenly comes back on. Then once the electric’s restored, you have to line up all your tracks again, reset the keyboard’s sounds, turn the speakers volumes back up and keeping a smile on your dial, try to make light of something that really should have you tearing your hair out.
I’ve seen some acts completely destroyed by these machines, many of which don’t seem to work on loudness at all, but seem to react more to certain unpredictable frequencies.
5: The Absent Concert Secretary!
The ‘Con Sec’ is the man or woman who tells you what times to go on, how long each set should be and how many sets you should do. He/she also introduces you on-stage, brings you off the stage and sometimes also works the club’s lights – if he/she is not propping up the bar at the time! In a sense, the Con Sec is your boss for the evening. But often this person simply fails to appear and you’re left wondering what to do, and who to approach instead. Even more annoying is when they turn up late, then tell you that you were supposed to be on-stage quarter of an hour before… usually implying that it’s your fault!
6: The Grumpy Early-Arriver!
A miserable faced (usually) elderly ‘git/gitess’ who makes sure he/she arrives an hour before anyone else, sits right next to a speaker and then complains that it’s too loud when you make the first tentative ‘one, two’s’ into the microphone.
Out of interest, you sometimes get the opposite – the ‘deaf moaner’ who sits right at the back of the club, and complains that he/she can’t hear anything .
If you get both of these in one night… you want to yell at them:
’Why don’t you two swop places!’
7. The Dicey Change Room!
Change rooms come in all shapes and sizes, and, of course, some are lovingly and caringly maintained. But there are also the adapted broom cupboards, stinky toilets, dingy and cold cellars, and those curtains shabbily hung at the back or sides of the stages. If the change room has a sink in it, you’re never really sure what you might find lurking in it – I had a recent one that would have kept David Attenborough happy for months!
Also, change rooms often seem to double as the clubs storage rooms… so it’s you, scores of stacked chairs, broken tables, horrible smelling cleaning equipment, old bingo machines, filing cabinets and a spider called Albert!
Yesterday the Gents – Tomorrow’s gateway to stardom!
Graffiti on the change room mirrors and walls can sometimes lighten the mood, and a few recent ones I’ve come across include:
‘This way to the lions!’
‘Why, Oh Lord… why me?!’
8. The Chair Booker!
This has happened to me a few times. You arrive, set up, and there’s not a single person in the club. So you find the nearest seat and get comfortable. In walks a man/woman who stands right next to you glaring pointedly. You guessed it… they want that seat… no other will do! Some don’t even bother to glare, they walk straight up and ask you to move. Sad stuff.
9. The Drunks
Self explanatory really. You arrive to find rude and self-important drunks who’ve obviously been drinking in the club all day. They’re usually very loud, and are quickly identified by the questions they slur out:
‘Are you any good’?
‘What sort of music do you play?’
‘Is it Karaoke?’
’Do you do any Elvis?’
Then there’s… ‘Do you play any ……(insert any band/singer here you’ve never heard of!)
If you’re cornered and forced to reply with a ‘no’… they then follow up with…
‘Why not?’
(Well think about it… They’re asking you to play something you’ve never even heard before, and asking you why you haven’t heard it. We’re in madness territory here!)
The funny thing about ‘the drunks’ is that after bugging you for over an hour while you set up, you often find that as soon as you begin the show… they’ve disappeared!(???)
10. The Expert!
These are the know-alls who tell you where to put your speakers, what and what not to play, how great an act they could have been (if only they had time for it) and how good or bad last weeks act was. They often have a favourite song which they present to you as the ‘club’s favourite’. For example, I nearly had a riot in a club a year or so back when an ‘expert’ advised me:
‘For #$!#s sake, don’t do Penny Arcade in here, they hate it… lad’
So I (very stupidly) made a joke about not doing it, only to find half the club wanting me to play it immediately, with the other half booing loudly at any mention of Roy Orbison’s classic(!) I soon realised that this was deeply divided club at war with itself…. with ‘Penny Arcade’ seeming to be the front line of contention!
Even telling them I knew the guy that wrote it, didn’t help!
Sammy King’s autobiography – a local guy who wrote that famous song
You can often get combinations of some of the above although I’m yet to encounter a club that I… (deep breath…)…
…Struggled to find, with a stage on the 10th floor, a noise limiter on the wall and an overflowing toilet for a change room. Drunks hassling me on the way in, and a pensioner next to a speaker moaning that it was too loud, another telling me what and whatnot to play whilst a further one asking me to shift seats. Nobody turning up to tell me when to play until after an hour when I’m informed that. .. (wait-for-it) I’m double booked!
CLUB COLLAPSES
I did a club a few months ago and one lady was telling me how a few years ago the entire roof of the concert room caved in. No lintel reinforcement on the windows. One woman had been sat in the club but hearing strange noises got out… a few others were just coming in and ran out. Here’s the best part… the act turned up and as casual as you like were told ‘don’t worry about that… we’ll put you on in the lounge’. 
THE FUNNY FARM BITS
A few funnies that have been tickling my ribs in recent weeks.
First off, some Paraprosdokian sentences e-mailed from Tim the Taxi. What are they? Apparently they’re a figure of speech that uses an unexpected and amusing ending to a series or phrase:
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.
We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.
Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.
Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!
Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
Next, a few quick funnies doing the rounds:
Man to his Psychiatrist
‘Well my main weakness would be my issues with reality, telling what’s real from what’s not.’
’…And your strengths?’
‘I’m Batman.’
Marriage is like a deck of cards. In the beginning all you need is 2 hearts and a diamond. By the end you’ll wish you had a club and a spade!
And lastly, for those who have kids!
Children. You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.
Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said!
Advice for the day: Be nice to your kids. They will choose your nursing home one day!
And finally: If you have a lot of tension. If you get a headache. Do what it says on the Aspirin bottle:
‘Take two Aspirin, and keep away from children!!!’
That’s all for now folks,
All the best
Rob.
Tipperary Song of Peace: MySpace Page
December 2010 Gigsheet: (Just clubs/Pubs in or near Leeds)
Rob Russell Solo: Thursday 9: Eastdene Social, Doncaster Rd, Rotherham, S65 2DA
Rob Russell Solo: Friday 10: Meanwood Conservative Club, 568 Meanwood Rd, Leeds, LS6 4AZ
Duelling Pianos: Saturday 11: Idle WMC, 23 High Street, Idle Bradford, BD10 8NB
Rob Russell Solo: Sunday 12: Pellon Social Pellon Social Club , Moor End Rd, Halifax, HX2 0HF
Rob Russell Solo: Wednesday 15: Morley WMC, Fountain Street, Morley, LS27 9EH
Duelling Pianos: Saturday 18: Stamford Club, Cleethorpes Rd. Grimsby
Rob Russell Solo: Sunday 19: Jubilee Social, Melville Place, Leeds LS6 2LZ
Rob Russell Solo: Friday 24: Wetherby District WMC, Sandbeck Way, Wetherby, LS22 7DN
Rob Russell Solo: Sunday 26: Hunslet Carr Sports and Social, Moor Road, Hunslet, Leeds, LS10 2JJ
Rob Russell Solo: Wednesday 29: Clarence WMC, 87 – 93 Clarence Street, YO31 7EL
Rob Russell Solo: Thursday 30: Southey Social Club, 170 Southey Green Road, Sheffield, S5 7QQ
Rob Russell Solo: Friday 31: Little Horton Cycling Club, 142a New Cross Street, Bradford, BD5 8BS
