Not ONE but TWO gigs at Nottingham's Chameleon Arts Cafe

Gecko

It's a while since I've been to Nottingham's Chameleon Arts Cafe - back in December, I think, for one of the gigs promoted by my teen - then, last week, I went twice!

Lewis Bootle

The first time was to see a guy from London who goes by the name of Gecko, on tour with Lewis Bootle - and if you'd been at Glastonbury over last weekend you could have found them playing there.

The second gig was a slimmed down version of the first gig promoted by my teen - John Allen and Patrick Craig. Folk/punk singer-songwriter John may not be well known here, but in his native Germany he's opened for Frank Turner and played for thousands! 

Patrick Craig

Both were shows that I'd have thought would bring folk in - but they didn't. Both turned out to be intimate, friendly gigs, and all the musicians put on as good a show as if the room had been packed. I enjoyed both evenings perhaps better than if the room had been packed to capacity - but it doesn't pay the musicians' travel costs, nor cover the venue's overheads.

John Allen

Now, The Chameleon is a shy, secretive sort of place - down an alleyway off Angel Row, and then up a flight of stairs to the bar, and another to the performance area. Once you're settled in the bar, with its cafe-style tables and flickering tea-lights, there's a fabulous view over Market Square. Upstairs, the gig venue is more basic but has a great sound system and the biggest speaker-stacks I've ever seen (far taller than I am!)  But the snag about a venue that's so very secret is that people rarely seem to find their way there by accident. I just hope people DO find it, because I'd hate to see it close down, but also, if they're playing to empty space, musicians won't be coming back to Nottingham.

Midsummer

The longest day started wet and unpleasant, short bursts of sun disrupted by heavy rain, but by midafternoon the sky had cleared leaving high clouds and a change to catch the solstice full 'strawberry' moon.


















Appropriately, the first strawberries have ripened this week, and from the allotment we have lettuce and peas. Apples are starting to swell on the trees and grapes in the greenhouse.

The flower beds have moved on from their Ikea blue and yellow (forget-me-nots and welsh poppies) of a fortnight ago to the pink and purples of foxgloves, flowering sage, lavender, hardy geraniums and even some pink-tinged love-in-a-mist, against the backdrop of the creamy-white climbing roses.

...and now while the weather stays dry and bright, for a couple of days at least, it's time to get out, pick elderflowers and make wine

A Music Festival that's Curious, Civilised and suitable for the Cautious!

Recently I've been talking a lot about trying out new things, expanding my horizons now I'm entering that post-children stage of life (let's not call it middle-aged, please!). We've always tried to make time for theatre and literary events but live music has been something missing. That's all changed this last few months with trips out to pubs for open mic nights and small music venues, but now Summer's here, and everyone is talking about festivals, so I'd like to spread my wings a little more and try one.

It's a huge step and, as this would be my first time, the thought of a music festival is a bit daunting. Through news, social media, and gossip via my teen, I know all about the mud, the queues for toilets, how bad they can be once you've reached them (I heard of one teen who left Leeds festival and nipped out to loos in the nearest supermarket!), and the danger of having drunks flatten your tent in the middle of the night! Not my idea of fun, so I was almost put off the whole idea - going to take that easy way out of claiming "I'm too old".

Then, through our book blog, I was offered the chance to go to the Curious Arts Festival - it's a mix of many things - part book festival (I've been to several and they're always nice sensible events with well behaved crowds), part music festival, part comedy, with everything from bug hunts for the children to opera for the grown ups. 

It's held, not in a farmer's field, but the grounds of Pylewell Park in the New Forest, with gardens to explore and views opening up to the Solent.



And the catering! No greasy bun burgers, but a choice ranging from a pop-up sushi restaurant to meat-free Levantine cuisine, with a fab-looking Moroccan tent for afternoon tea and cake.



Mentioning tents reminds me that that's normally the accommodation at music festivals - a tiny tent pitched in some mud (or a river-like flood if you were at Download festival this weekend). Now the last time I went camping was back before my age had reached double digits, so this is another thing to be faced with trepidation ... but again, Curious Arts Festival have a solution - you can choose to be as basic or extravagant as you like, with options from taking your own tent, hiring a basic ready-erected one to glamping in a bell tents with timber camp beds, coir carpets underfoot, all bedding and towels provided. Could camping get more glamorous?

Taking everything together this sounds like the perfect way for a ageing novice like myself to test out the whole festival experience. It definitely sounds Curious, but also civilised, and suitable for the cautious such as myself. Where else am I going to find the likes of Billy Bragg and Skinny Lister on the same bill as Deborah Moggach and Carol Ann Duffy?  It seems to good to miss, and I'm just hoping that my personal circumstances allow me to go. If not this year, then maybe next ...

If, like me, you're 'curious' about this event check out their website here

                                          ... and to see how it went, see here

Who decides if you're too old?

A couple of weeks back, I'd planned in a vague way to go to a local gig, to catch a young punk/folk Billy Bragg style singer playing support on a tour, but then I began to worry because I thought at my age, and at that venue, I'd stick out like a sore thumb!

I'm comfortable enough to go to open mic nights and small gigs in pubs, because generally they attract a wide age-group, both performers and audience.
Although I've not been to any, I'd imagine I'd be comfortable with the anonymity of a large stadium-size gig. For that matter, I've seen photos shared on social media from theatre-style venues, generally featuring a come-back artist on tour, where the audience members have looked FAR older than I am, and if I'd been able to afford to see Bruce Springsteen some time this last week or so, I think I'd have had plenty of company of my own age.
But it's the thought of that in-between size venue putting on up-and-coming artists, themselves often in their early 20s, and attracting an audience in the same age range, that makes me feel uncomfortable.
At the younger end of the age scale, it's easy to know if teens are allowed - there'll be an age limit clearly signed - but who should decide if you're too old? Imagine though that you walk into a club and everyone else there is half your age ... Will they think you've taken a wrong turn? that you're delusional about your age? or that you're only along because you're a relative of someone in the band? This is something after all that seems to apply (in my head at least) only to music venues. The other sorts of places I go - theatres, cinemas, book events - don't feel like they have this unstated age limit.

Long story short, I chickened out.


Then a couple of days afterwards, I saw this article  from the Independent - one of many being shared round the web telling a story about an elderly Polish couple who visited London and headed out to a nightclub. At first people assumed they were lost, but, no, it turned out they'd heard good reviews of the place and bought tickets before their trip!
Well, I've decided that if they can go out, mix with the youngsters, and have fun, then so can I! I shan't be off out clubbing - it's not my scene at all - but in future I shan't let my age stand in the way of listening to a band I want to hear.

Top Ten Literary Adventures

Over the weekend, someone ( a publisher, I think) shared a link to Alison Flood's article in the Guardian about the recreation of David Balfour's heroic trek across Scotland in RL Stevenson's Kidnapped; "Readers, go wild! Which literary adventure would you choose in real life?"  by Alison Flood, and the final thoughts about following your own literary adventure had me thinking ... I wouldn't mind trying that, though to be honest I'd probably barely make it a half a dozen miles. So pretending I have limitless energy, no worries about time, expense, or possible danger, which ones would I follow ...

1 Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson. Let's start with David Balfour's journey across Scotland from Mull to Queensferry, I've frequently spent holidays in Scotland - in places along this route - so I'd love to do this, though I suspect the wilder walking at the beginning of the journey would be the more interesting. I'd have to make sure I didn't get sidetracked by beaches and paddling though - Scotland's clear seas and empty beaches have proved too tempting before now when on holiday.


2 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. This novel always makes its way into my Top Ten lists - romance, war, whatever - so it's only fitting that it should be here. Inman's is another mammoth cross-country trek, this time through the southern US states from the battlefields of the American Civil War back to Cold Mountain, in North Carolina. On his way, a bit like Ulysses, he meets people who help him, people who hinder him, and some who just want  him dead! Inman is trying his best to avoid people and towns, so his journey is through uninhabited mountainous country. Sadly I suspect today most of it might be alongside a multi-lane highway rather than following little used mountain tracks - maybe I'd need to add in some time travel...

3 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Two - or more- journeys in one book - across the North African desert, and up the 'leg' of Italy in another of my favourite books. Another war-time story, this time WW2, and again the journeys in the book are filled with danger, both man-made and natural.

4 Archipelago by Monique Roffey.  No hard foot-slogging required this time, just a better set of sea-legs than I've got. Again, it's 'leave out all the danger (and the sad part with the dog)" but give me a nice calm sea, someone to crew the boat, and the thought of following Gavin's voyage through the Caribbean islands really appeals to me.


5 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. To be honest, I didn't take much to Harold himself  - I've spent too many years telling children that you don't wander off without telling someone where you're going! - but even so, there's something compelling about his journey from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed, almost from one end of England to the other, sleeping in barns, sheds or rough as necessary. Just give me a more sensible pair of shoes, and maybe better lodgings ...

6 Lord of the Rings/the Hobbit by JRR Tolkein - ok neither are journeys you could really make (which is why I've put them together as one choice) but fantasy novels often have the best quest-style journeys in them, and wouldn't you just love to be able to follow Bilbo's and Frodo's footsteps?


7 The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers - an adventure set just before the First World War among the islands the narrow sea passages of North Germany. There are spies aplenty in the original but miss them out and it could be a pleasant summer-time cruise. Coincidentally, it's another literary adventure that's being re-created - see The Riddle of the Sands Adventure Club

8  Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie - without the murder! A fabulous way to see Europe, from the comfort of a deluxe train - no tiring walking, no worrying about being sea-sick, just sit back and let the train carry you along.

9 Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome - grab a couple of friends, and a dog, and head off on a gentle trip up the Thames, probably the most fun of these literary adventures

10  Smokeheads by Doug Johnstone - another Scottish adventure to end with. Four thirty-somethings set out on a trip to Islay, intent on sampling the island's biggest export - whisky. With vengeful policemen, psychopaths and a great amount of whisky, it's not quite David Balfour-style adventuring among the Scottish islands, but this is one adventure that I've actually been on! The locals were all friendly, the scariest thing a pony-trek, and I seem to remember the sun shining all week - remarkable for West Coast Scotland!

A True Story about Patrick Craig

Last autumn my teen decided she'd move from reviewing music to promoting it. So one night in October I headed to Nottingham to help out with taking money at the door and such.
Originally, two guys had been expected to perform but an extra one had been added at the last minute  As I got there, taking my jacket off and setting my little table up, the guys were just finishing sound-checking and that "late addition", Patrick Craig, was starting to play. Something in his voice or what he was singing made me stop what I was doing and listen - and I was mesmerised.
He's not the only singer/songwriter I've discovered over the past few months, through either my teen's gigs or places I'm been on my own, but most of them I've checked out through music streaming sites before hearing them live; Patrick was totally unexpected - and more memorable for it.

Since then I've followed him and his plans over social media, demanded his EPs for Christmas presents, gone to see him whenever he's been performing locally - and hopefully not come over as a weird stalker! Today his debut album, True Story, is released - hopefully the first step to bigger things. Have a listen via the link below -

Music and Cake at The Maypole - my new favourite venue

This is my new favourite place to go out for the evening - The Maypole Inn in Derby. It's cute and quirky, decorated with old photos and bric-a-brac, and a cross somewhere between a country pub and a tearoom. 

So, with that in mind, it's probably fitting that the first event I went to, last week, was an Acousticake evening. There was live music from three local artists (including my teen) and there was free cake; hence acousti-cake.

How civilised is that?

There'll be more of these evenings - and I'll be back!

Patrick Craig

Then, this Thursday evening we were back to see Tim OT and Patrick Craig reaching the end of a short tour they've been on before the launch of Patrick's debut album.

If you're a regular reader of this blog (are there even such people?), you'll know I've seen both of them before but on the bill with other artists. Together they work even better. Their sounds aren't the same but complement each other.
Patrick, with a voice that moves from whispering to a roar, sings more of personal angst; Tim mixes a bit of social commentary in with his romantic mishaps, a bit like a young Billy Bragg.

Tim OT

No free cake this time, but there was lots on the menu - and tea and coffee being served all night (something to console the designated drivers)


Sadly, there wasn't much of a crowd, but I'm hoping that hasn't put them off Derby completely and that they'll be back soon. Meanwhile I'm off to listen to their cds....



Find The Maypole here

and on Bandcamp Tim OT
and Patrick Craig