The Virtually Acoustic Club

2001-02-14

Moriarty's

Curiouser and curiouser.

The story goes like this:

I'm trying to work up a new song, Mr Wrong, which I'm still a bit shaky on the words for. I go along to the VAC to give it a try, taking the words on with me as a crib sheet. But the only place I can put them is on the floor, so that I can't see them anyway. I mention this - I have an odd habit of being as open as I can be with the audience about the strange little things that freak me out, because it often means that they don't freak me out any more - saying that I have a piece of paper, but it isn't really very useful because I can't really see it, but that I derive great comfort from it "like Neville Chamberlain did from his piece of paper - and we all know what a success that was".

And then the band who'd been on immediately before me, who seem a bit tanked up, frankly, start heckling me from the back. I just try to carry on (considering that I'm doing the song that I am least able to do in my sleep, this is not the simplest of tasks, but it's either that or stop altogether), and they get louder and more obstreperous. The audience in general applaud quite warmly considering my actual playing must have been pretty bad. Referring to an earlier performer who'd cut her finger ("so that's my excuse", she said), I say that my fingers are fine, so I have no excuse (except maybe to say "the dog ate my talent"). Most of the band have left by now, except the singer, who's getting very worked up indeed. This is a very pissed young man, in both the British and American senses, hurling random abuse. At me.

Steve Chin, one of the people who run VAC, tries to reason with him, but in vain. Then he tries to get him to leave. I've gone for Comforting Lie, which I really ought to be able to play in my sleep by now. Unwisely, I answer back ("at last, the folk scene has its own Bez" - the singer does that shambling walking-on-the-spot dance favoured by such luminaries as Bez and Thingy Brown out of the Stone Roses), which was not only likely to make him more aggressive but was also Bad Karma - never be rude to to other performers, even if they are a complete pain in the arse, it'll only reflect badly on you. He resists Steve for a bit and then goes downstairs. I do the rest of the song.

Interestingly, the fact that I seem to have been cool under pressure (in fact, I was rabbit-in-headlights paralysed, trying to work out which way to duck should he throw his beer glass), completely distracts from the fact that I played very badly indeed (I challenge anybody not to when people are hurling personal abuse at them, but all the same: "We should learn to play in our sleep, because usually we do").

When I went into the gents later on, I was followed in by an old bloke with grey hair and a beard, who starts having a go at me:

"What's your problem?"

(What? I thought.)

"What's your problem?"

(Right now, my only problem appears to be you)

"Why are you so insulting to people?"

(What? Why me? Why is everybody suddenly picking on me?)

"Why are you so insulting to people"

And the only thing I can think of is:

"Everybody's got to have a hobby."

Bad mistake. Bone to a dog, with a side order of grist for the mill. I try to leave, he blocks the door.

"So it's your hobby, is it? Being insulting to people?"

(Eh?)

"Give us a kiss."

(Oh, for God's sake...)

He grabs my face, one hand on each cheek. Getting very aggressive.

"Give us a kiss."

I think this has got wierd enough. The time for polite incomprehension is past. The time for discretion-is-the-better-part-of-valour est arrivé.

I force my way out of the toilet.

The singer reappears, saying he wants to talk to me. What about, exactly? He's got pissed up, spent five minutes hurling abuse at me and now he wants a quiet chat about... what? Chord progressions? Buying trousers that fit? What?

"I don't want to hit you, I just want to talk to you... you pussy!"

Run away. It's Valentine's Day, all the normal people are tucked up in bed with each other. The world is full of nutters tonight. Run away.

* * *

I had to work it out for myself. Not a reflection on Steve, but he didn't tell me why they were so pissed off until after I had done. They thought that the "Neville Chamberlain" line was having a go at them - the kid had taken crib-sheets onstage with him. In fact, I suspect that they interpreted everything I said as a dig at them. I've been doing this long enough to know that you don't have a go at other performers, it's a sure way to lose the audience's sympathy, particularly when the audience are the other performers. The man who molested me in the toilet was the singer's dad. He probably thought I was gay, because to some people anyone who isn't a "hard bloke" is a poof. Most of the gay people I know would be mortally offended if they were associated with as big a slob as me. But he wasn't to know that. Or, indeed, anything else.

In the real fact, the basic one, the hard truth, they probably knew I wasn't having a go at them. They just didn't care. The kid had been on, now it was the old man's turn for his fun - it was him who detected the "insult", and probably fanned the flames of his son's alcohol-fuelled paranoia. Proper wind-up, get the poof, lovely.

This is the downside to this city, maybe even this country. I hope not the whole world. The mindless, pissed-up let's-just-get-off-our-faces-and-have-a-ruck pointless bollocks that you have to watch out for all the sodding time.

The name of this band was either Sonnet or Sonet and at the end of day the really sad thing about them was that they weren't actually that good. At the music thing. Not really, stinkingly bad, which can be quite interesting sometimes, but not that good in a way which is just dull. And if the Old Man starts a barny everywhere they go, then the kid doesn't stand a chance of getting a proper gig anywhere except the local boozer. Maybe that's all he wants. Maybe he thinks Alan McGee will wander in off the street and whisk him away to stardom. Maybe he's right, I don't know.

I don't think so, though. Either way, I don't care.

Good at making a bit of trouble out of nothing at all, though. That's probably enough for Good Old British Stardom, eh?