Blowing my own trumpet...well...euphonium!

I am blessed!

No...seriously, I am...and what's more...I know it and appreciate it!

It's been a while since the last blog...I've been a bit 'down' with the depression, busy at times but not at others and, this week I've spent 'home alone' with 2 sons at their mum's for a few days and the other on a church youth holiday in Belgium.

Last week was dominated by the recording of another CD...and I'm amazed how 'blasé' that must come across; so I've taken stock of such physical achievements - and hence the profession of my 'blessedness' apparent above! This blog piece is NOT intended as a piece of shameless self-promotion or big-headedness - merely a reflection of how blessed I really consider myself to have been in this life!

I'm no household name...but I've had opportunities I know a lot of other people would love to have had! I have been playing concerts as a euphonium soloist since I was 12...back in 1974 (which, honestly, doesn't feel as long ago as it clearly is!). If I had a pound for every time I've played 'Song of the Brother', 'Ransomed', 'La Belle Americaine', 'Euphony' and 'The Better World' I guess I'd have a healthy savings account balance today! I gave up counting at 125 towns and cities in England, Scotland and Wales...and can add more in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Norway and at least 5 cities in California to the list!

I held the record high mark for the Associated Board Grade 8 examination when I passed it, aged 15, back in 1978...I was told at music college that had I been as proficient on a more 'fashionable' instrument I could have made a career of it: suffice to say that 3 decades later I have never made one penny from blowing my euphonium!!! I have had compliments a-plenty, featured solos on two CDs and a review of my playing in a very highly-regarded online publication which resulted from a guest performance I made with a band a few years ago.

( http://www.4barsrest.com/reviews/concerts/con202.asp?l=uk )

Last week's CD was the latest (and I reckon it will be best so far) by Portsmouth Citadel Band. Recorded in four sessions over three days in Warsash Church it will be titled 'Deep Harmony' and features music by composers as varied as Ravel (Bolero), Gullidge (The Fount) and Peter Graham (The Last Amen). It will also mark a considerable step-up in quality by the band in terms of playing, reflecting their recent improvements under the baton and leadership of my good friend John Hanchett.

It should have been enough if I'd only played the euphonium...

...But I have also been able to perform in many other ways: I have sung for as long as I can remember - I made my stage debut in the musical 'Take Over Bid' when aged just 5 and a couple of years later remember being made aware that, in singing the hymn 'Now I Belong to Jesus' in a church service, I had raised a few smiles in the congregation by innocently claiming to have once been 'lost in sin's degradation'. (I was not such an evil child, I promise!)

After college I travelled Britain and Europe with the rock band 'Blood & Fire'. I was NOT as proficient on the electric guitar but I think I did an adequate job there, also featuring as a singer, trombonist and part-time additional keyboardist on their first two albums (then only released on cassette but now on CD!) Since then my 'rock' career went through 'Cross Purposes' and prog-rock band 'The Big Picture'...the latter band has still not officially split but it is 5 years since our last gig...it is a problem when the guitarist lives in Leeds, the drummer in Norfolk, our bassist is in the RAF - even if Alvin and I are only 25 miles or so apart in Haslemere and Portsmouth!

Yet I've done plenty of singing on my own, written 286 songs (to date) and have had my own solo CD of Christmas songs on sale for the last 7 or 8 years. In fact, I've been singing ever since childhood and featured as a vocal soloist on three more CDs that I know are listened to all around the world - those made by Portsmouth Citadel's Songsters. Although I have not sung on the last few PCS CDs I have been the main pianist/accompanist on two of the last three (including 'Take My Life' released earlier this year: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-My-Life-Let-Be/dp/B001WO9QOO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256831625&sr=1-1 )

So...I AM BLESSED! Not just in terms of the talents God gave me but to have been able to offer those gifts back to Him in so many varied ways! It's been a heck of a life to experience ( I managed to fit in over 20 years music teaching in secondary schools) and I've loved every minute of the performing opportunities God has given me...and I hope it continues for many years to come!


I hope it doesn't go too far on my part to add a little even to the thespian theme I hinted at above too. That I've been able to sing and appear in 2 movies (one in the lead role!) and on stage, TV and radio has been a great added bonus! I've played on Ruth Rendell's 'Inspector Wexford', TV Drama 'The Blind Date' (starring Zara Turner) and, of course sung outside the Queen Vic in 'Eastenders'! On stage I've played Herr Schultz in 'Cabaret', Frank Strang in 'Equus', Mr Bumble in 'Oliver!', Henry VIII in 'Kings & Queens', Peter in 'The Witness', Father Christmas in 'Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (for which I also wrote the incidental music) and several more...I even have my own page and video clip on IMDb ( http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm2218461/ )

Enough,then, for now...that's all about me, your 'proffsky' (show-offsky!)...and, as you will have seen - I am blessed!

The Screechy Music!!!!!

One of my lovely readers recently commented on her Facebook status that she wished her college teacher had not played "the screechy music" on the day she had a headache! I couldn't help but smile and ask the source of the accused quasi-musical screams! I suspected the most screechy* of all screechy pieces I have ever encountered - in fact I could hear it in my head as soon as I recalled it.

I speak of Penderecki's extra-ordinary 'Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima' no less! I first heard this in a composition workshop session at Music College back in 1981 and found it disturbing, challenging, riveting, thrilling and horrendous...all at the same time! The piece (written for 52 string instruments) requires its performers to interpret symbols, play on the 'wrong' side of the bridge, deliberately use 'quarter tones', slap the instruments and create textures and tone clusters.

(I had already encountered tone clusters by that time through my brass band experiences. Composer Paul Patterson made quite a 'splash' in 1974 with the highly controversial 'Chromascope'. When he wrote this work for 'Besses o'the Barn' band it was certainly unlike anything ever heard before in the brass band world! Even more reactionary was 'Cataclysm' a year or so later. I had played 'Cataclysm' myself and was intrigued by instructions on my euphonium part to 'play as high/low a note as possible' - and to improvise a 'triple forte' ending! No two performances could ever be the same (shades of the Indian music I wrote about a few weeks ago). I was even 'inspired' to compose my own piece in a similar vein - a massive work for large brass band with 8 timpani, tuned a semitone apart, and a synthesizer! Called 'Creation and Destruction', I wrote it for a college composition competition - only to be disctinctly embarrassed when Patterson himself was invited to 'judge' the contest!!!!)


I'd guess that fewer than one in a thousand music afficionados have heard even a portion of 'Threnody' but an attempt should, perhaps, be made to experience it at least once...even if 'just to see'! I don't think its the type of piece you would ever sit down to enjoy, it would not aid relaxation...and certainly is not the choice to accompany a romantic dinner!**

I was wrong in my guesswork anyway! The (as yet unidentified) piece in question was composed by the great 20th Century French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-92). I have studied and enjoyed several of Messiaen's works (though I would still consider myself some way below an 'expert'!)

The two things I mostly associate with Messiaen are birdsong and colour:

Birdsong in music is another of those recurring themes. As long ago as Haydn and Mozart, then later Beethoven (in the Pastoral Symphony) composers had written music intended to represent birdsong - followed by Mahler (most notably in Symphony 7) and many other composers - but Messiaen took its use to new levels. An extremely keen ornithologist himself, he encouraged his students to listen intently to the songs of the birds. His 1952 audition piece for flautists wishing to enter the Paris Conservatoire was based entirely on the actual song of the blackbird. Later works such as 'Reveil des Oiseaux' (1953) and (the piece I first encountered of his) 'Couleurs de la Cite Celeste' (1963) feature 'actual' birdsong quite extensively as does, in fact, most of his work from the 1950s onward. (Many tapes of recorded birdsong were found in Messiaen's paraphernalia along with manuscript representations of them in standard notation).

Colour, of course, is another vital ingredient in both Patterson's 'Chromascope' and much of Messiaen's work - indeed it is implied in the very title of 'Cite Celeste'... I was impressed as a young musician with the compositional techniques Messiaen used to 'recreate' the depths of a cave and the way sounds passed through it...I remember him using deep, loud notes or chords, with very quiet 'overtones' or fake-harmonics high above it - almost imperceptible in the soundscape, yet just enough to manage completely to provide that 'depth' and send a shiver down the spine!

In 'Couleurs' and other works, such as 'Des Canyons aux Etoiles' Messiaen actually wrote the colours he was trying to represent onto the conductor's score - to aid the interpretation, however, not to influence the listener... I relate this to the way Debussy put the titles of his, often programmatic, Preludes (e.g. Voiles, La Cathedrale Engloutie, Minstrels etc) in brackets UNDERNEATH the piece...as if to encourage the listener to imagine for themselves before referring to the original intention.

And that brings me back to the brass band again. I'm not sure if it was on the same of my father's brass band LPs (although I'd like to think I am right in recalling that it may have been) on which I first encountered 'Chromascope' sat another piece that tried to represent colour: 'Spectrum' by Gilbert Vinter. This has always been one of my favourite pieces of band music and, in contrast with much of the music I have written about today, it is largely melodic and conventional in its harmonies and structure - and, like the others, well worth a listen!

Like Kate's teacher, when I was teaching I loved to present music to my students that would challenge their accepted ideals, widen their horizons...make them ask questions! I once went too far, I seem to recall...'8 Songs for a Mad King' by Peter Maxwell-Davies was too much for any GCSE group and I learned a lesson myself in class that day!!!

So, the only shame, as far as I'm concerned, was that Kate had a headache on the day in question...maybe she will listen again with a clear head (couple of paracetamol??) and an open mind...and she will, as we all will, find that music can usually find a way to speak to us in that very special way.

****************************************************************

*I have to acknowledge there is no such word as 'screechy' but...you know what it means nevertheless!

**fans of the 'Manic Street Prechers' may prove the exception - the Welsh rockers used an excerpt from the piece as an introduction to their track 'You Love Us' back in 1991.

October the Ninth

9th October, 1909 - Gwendoline Maud Brinkworth (my paternal grandmother) was born in Cardiff.

9th October, 1940 - John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool. Gwen was 30.

9th October, 1962 - Marc Owen Harry was born in Wrexham. Gwen was 52 and John was 22.

9th October, 1975 - Sean Ono Lennon was born in New York. Gwen had died earlier that year, John was 35, Marc became a teenager.

**********************************************

Thus is my own family and the Lennon family forever linked. I so much wanted one of my own children to have been born on 9th October...but was not even close! Is it too late? It's my turn, after all! Maybe my (soon to be ex) wife and I never had enough early nights in January...

Nevertheless, the 9/10 date each year, having imposed itself four times in sixty-five years (against odds of 'goodness knows how many' to 1*) it is little wonder the number 9 held such a fascination for either John or I, is it? (#9 Dream, One After 909, "Revolution 9/Number Nine" etc.)

In fact, the number 9 crops up very often throughout the world of music - look at the number of composers who stopped (for one reason or another!) at 9 symphonies? 9/8 time (compound triple), nonet, the interval, several pop and rock band names (e.g. Nine Inch Nails, 999) and album titles (e.g. Public Image Ltd, Fairport Convention)...even John's fellow Beatle had an album called 'Cloud Nine'...

John would have been 69 today, my Nana Harry 'one after 99' - telegram from the Queen time...alas she has been returned to her Maker for some 34 years. But John is forever 40.

My mum woke me on that Tuesday morning in December 1980 with the words 'prepare yourself for a shock'...but nothing could have prepared me for her news...I sat on my bedroom floor tuning my radio from station to station trying to find one that would tell me John Lennon was NOT dead - but they all did the opposite! I made a 'shrine' in my bedroom window with album covers and my guitar before heading off to school. At school, my friend Colin Nicholson and I asked permission to hold a gathering during the next day's General Study period to play John's music...

...Permission was granted - on condition that for every record we played we performed 2 songs live! So, the next day, we prepared our little concert - expecting two or three others to attend. So many wanted to pay their respects to the murdered ex-Beatle we had to move out of the room into a bigger hall and Colin and I performed in front of rows of crying girls wearing glassless, round spectacles, Beatles scarves and wigs. It was the first time I ever sang while accompanying myself on guitar!

A few weeks before I had taken my place in the queue for one of the first ever 'midnight openings' in Newcastle City centre...to purchase the first new LP by John Lennon since 1975. 'Double Fantasy' had sat on my turntable ever since. The album has been unfairly criticised since its release but, for me, it's a gem of a record! I think much of the negativity is connected with the tired and ridiculous Yoko-bashing that still goes on in Beatles forums today. I've always found Yoko an intriguing, innovative artist - both in the musical and 'art' sense: one of the things that led John back to recording in 1980 was hearing female 'new-wave' singers like Lene Lovich whose 'new' sound was an old one to people who'd heard Yoko's output for the last ten years!

Yoko shared 'Double Fantasy' with John, alternating tracks (almost) throughout. Her first song on the album, 'Kiss, Kiss, Kiss', was one of those that, while living at home, I had to turn the volume down or quickly plug headphones in (along with tracks like 'You're Breaking My Heart' by Nilsson) for Yoko loudly and enthusiastically fakes a prolonged multiple orgasm as part of it...I wonder if that had ever been done on record before???

John's songs on the record I grew to love very quickly - '(Just Like) Starting Over', 'Woman', 'Watching The Wheels' and 'Beautiful Boy' in particular. The last of these became even more poignant in the weeks ahead - a wonderful love song to his 5 year-old son, Sean. "I can hardly wait to see you come of age," John sang. Of course, he never saw that day...

...But it does bring us round to where we started, doesn't it. 'Little' Sean, John's 'beautiful boy' is 34 today...just 6 years younger than his dad was when his life was stolen. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sean...and John...and Nana Harry...oh and me too!

*I have several friends who are Maths fiends - none of whom I've been able to contact in the last 24 hours to calculate this one for me...if anyone comes up with a figure I'll re-edit the post!!!!

Oh good...National Poetry Day!!!

I used to love this day when I was teaching! Quite often I would entertain my classes with a newly written ode for the day...but more often it was the staff room who got the benefit - I once remember struggling my way through about 25 staff members at St Luke's with a limerick composed for each!

I started writing poems when very young - I recently found an old exercise book from 'Millbridge Upper', my primary school in Liversedge (Nr Heckmondwike), Yorkshire. Amongst imaginative stories about Aladdin's Lamp (no boring 'rubbing it' for me... the inscription on my lamp read: 'stuff stinkbombs down the spout and you will get a surprise!' In the margin - in red - Mrs Ingham's reply read clearly, 'so will you if you write this sort of thing again!') and King Xerxes sits a poem, complete with pencil drawing carefully coloured in: it's title was 'The Ustranoch'. It begins thus:

"The Ustranoch comes from Uranus

It's body is made from jellyus"

Maybe an inauspicious start - but I was only 7 at the time!

Poetry began to flow on a family holiday in 1981. We used to spend a couple of weeks each summer in one of the Salvation Army's holiday homes - alternating between Broadstairs, Folkestone, Westgate and Cliff House near Bournemouth. In retrospect, I'd say we were at Cliff House the most but that 1981 holiday was remarkable for many reasons... For a start it coincided with probably the most exciting Test Match of all time - the one that led to the England v Australia cricket series becoming known forever as 'Botham's Ashes'. The first item I wanted to take to the beach each day was my transistor radio...and I sat on the sand listening to Johnners, Boilers, Sir Fred, The Bearded Wonder etc. day after day as England toiled...*

My dad had turned his radio off in disgust as England lapsed to 135 for 7 in their 2nd Innings - following on and still nearly a hundred behind...history goes on to aver that at least two Aussies placed bets at 500 to 1 on an England win, never believing for a second that there was the remotest chance...But Sir Ian had other ideas and blasted 149, ably assisted in building a lead by the unlikely duo of Chris Old and Graham Dilley.

By midday the next day (it was Tuesday, July 21st, by the way) nobody had even ventured onto the beach - the tiny TV room was so overcrowded they had to move the TV into the lounge...and then even into the dining room as Bob Willis skittled the Australians out to take 8 for 43 and led the troops to the unlikeliest of all wins and the start of an irrepressable run of form that lasted the rest of the summer!

Please excuse that massive digression as I veer off-piste...it's the Ronnie Corbett syndrome again! Blame it on my passion for writing, for cricket and this absurd memory I was blessed with (I don't have to Google these facts and figures - they just sit waiting for the chance to leap out of my head!!!) Eight days later Charles and Diana were married at St Paul's and we crowded round the TV again in Westgate...but the excitement even of that Royal Wedding Day could not match the Test Match!**

Back to poetry...it was on that holiday that I also took a blue school exercise book and, inspired by an Edward Lear and Monty Python kick I'd been on, I began to write nonsense poems. Every evening I would be summoned by other guests to entertain them with the fruits of my day's labour - and they fed my writing habit with copious laughter and merriment - particularly one dear lady, Olive Daws, who laughed hysterically poem after poem! (Olive is the mother of David - now famous as one of the best cornet players in the world, of course!)

...And I've written poems ever since. I remember that once, while part of an entertainment team at Butlins in Bognor Regis I was challenged to write three poems in an hour on subjects nominated by the audience - I just found them today before I started writing this piece! Around 1990 I was persuaded by friends and family to assemble an official collection of poems and this I did, paying to publish it myself on school equipment. It was half a book of funny and nonsense poems and half of profound or reflective poetry. The first run of 100 copies sold out very quickly, as did a second run and I even made more after that...one or two tattered copies might still be knocking around somewhere. It was called 'Cortina Biriani' in deference to 'Carmina Burana', the famous piece of music by Karl Orff - the cover featured a plate of curry...sans meat but littered with rusting Ford cars, of course!

If I had to pick one poem to mark today, though, it would not be one from 'Cortina Biriani' but one that would bring me back to music (once again...all roads lead to music...) I wrote this poem while waiting for the last few finishers to leave a very boring Geography Exam I was 'invigilating' in 1994. Harry Nilsson had recently died and I wrote the poem to mark the passing of the singer/songwriter I still acknowledge today to have been my favourite pop/rock musician ever and also the most inspiring influence on my own songwriting.

It was later published in the Nilsson Fanzine 'Everybody's Talkin'' and, when we met in 2001, Curtis Armstrong (noted Nilsson historian and, of course, famous actor) told me it was his favourite poem ever. Most John Lennon/Beatles fans will be aware of John Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' - a period of some 18 months when he and Yoko went through a separation in the mid 1970s. John spent some of that time living in a drug and booze filled house with fellow hell-raisers including Harry, Ringo and Keith Moon (drummer from 'The Who').

John agreed (while drunk, he later claimed) to produce Nilsson's next LP - unfortunately for all concerned, by the time the sessions were underway Harry had raised hell to such an extent that he had ruptured a vocal cord and was coughing up blood whenever he tried to sing! His famously smooth, gliding baritone was reduced to a croaky rasp...yet he tried to hide the truth from Lennon and an LP was, finally, released - Lennon crediting his contributions to a pseudonym 'Dr Winston O'Boogie' - even the seemingly innocent cover of the LP (above) features toy letter-blocks...a D and an S...with a 'rug' inbetween...you get it?

I'm glad they made the album - 'Pussy Cats' - two of my favourites working together...it's not my favourite Nilsson album...but it's Harry and John, you know??? To other fans it obviously IS a favourite - American band 'The Walkmen' re-recorded the entire project as a tribute a few years ago! You can find out lots more about the album if you follow the Nilsson links from http://www.marcharry.com/ but...for now, here is the poem in honour of Harry, John and National Poetry Day 2009:

Pussy Cats

Sing a song of Schmilsson

A bottle full of rye,

O'Boogie, Moon and Starkey

Soon drank the bottle dry

So they opened up another

As the tapes began to roll

And, while Harry 'laughed his ass off',

The bottle took its toll.

And they 'had their share of good times'

And their 'spirits' kept them high

And they left us with an album -

And they left us wondering why

The Almighty, in His wisdom,

When He said 'My will be done'

Deemed 'pussy cats' get nine lives...

But our heroes only one?

(copyright HarryMusic 1999)

*these were the affectionate names beloved by all England cricket supporters who listened to the national institution known as Test Match Special on Radio 4 each summer - in turn the names referring to the wonderful Brian Johnston, Trevor Bailey, Fred Trueman and Bill Frindall...

**unbeknownst to either of us at the time, it later transpired that between these two momentous events my future wife and I had met for the very first time...or at least been present in the same Salvation Army service in Ramsgate...we realized many years later this was the case when we recalled the item for young people in the meeting involved a game of Chinese Whispers with the message to be passed along being "if it rains on Wednesday a lot of people will be very disappointed".

Whew!!!! It's not that I don't want to write this...but the last few days have been a whirlwind! Before I even approach the subject of music a few other bits...I've had the AA out twice to sort the car, youngest son Ieuan (5) has been ill, I had a freezer break down and lost all its contents, replaced it thanks to eBay (involving picking it up in Bognor), 2 trips to the dump with said broken freezer, old armchair and sacks of rotting meat...

...You getting the idea...? I know...we all have weeks like that! My saving grace was the weekend I just enjoyed...5 music events in 48 hours - whoop!

Lewis, Ieuan and I left Portsmouth on Friday afternoon and drove up the A3 listening to Jim Painton's 2 CDs (see my last posting...). Both Ieuan and Lewis gained new favourite songs in the process - Ieuan asked for 4 replays for 'The Girls From High School' while Lewis joined me as a BIG fan of 'Last Night I Saw Lennon'. We paid our respects to Jim from afar then...it was his funeral over in New Jersey last Friday...

Then we paid our respects to Lucy by listening to the song she inspired - if you hadn't seen the news, Lucy Vodden (the former nursery-mate of Julian Lennon who was painted 'in the sky with diamonds') died last week too.

The first concert was in Orpington...a fund-raiser for the local Rotary Club in a large, very full Crofton Hall. Most of the concert was performed by the "Force 10 Big Band". I have listened to big bands a fair bit (mainly Glenn Miller) but had never seen one play live before. This outfit was well-drilled and very competent with a very good male vocalist and 2 extraordinarily good saxophonists! I am far from a big fan of the saxophone and I have gone on record in the past to say so - but these 2 guys could probably convert me...a couple of their solos gave me the same 'tingle of wonder' I feel when Wakeman solos in 'Starship Trooper' or Dunnery in 'You'll Never Go To Heaven' - they are special, rare moments!

I sat at a nice Technics electric piano and made my contributions to the 'Songs From the Shows' evening performing, amongst others, 'Maria' (West Side Story), Edelweiss (Sound of Music - that one accompanied by my son Lewis on guitar!), and 'Love Changes Everything' (Aspects of Love). It all seemed to go down OK and several members of the audience informed me they thought my bits were the best bits...I'll take any praise :)

On Saturday evening I performed a 90 minute 'one man cabaret' for my cousin Andrea's church in St Mary Cray. A nice fish and chip supper washed down with a good old 'Army Cup of Tea' went down well and I entertained with songs, piano solos, poems and stand-up comedy! I extemporised a nice new solo based on Hoagy Carmichael's 'Stardust' and remarked on both that piece and my Beatles Medley that good music will always pass the test of time!

I even managed to grab a mid-cabaret cuppa while Lewis took over the entertainment performing Edelweiss by himself this time and following it with an impeccable rendition of Paul McCartney's 'Blackbird' - he never inherited those long fingers from me (and that's my excuse for not ever having been able to play guitar parts like that!!!) Well done, Looby...a true chip off this old block!

On Sunday morning we had a short drive across London to Camberwell where Portsmouth Citadel Salvation Army Band were the guests for two very high profile services at the William Booth College. The rest of the band (including my eldest son, Morgan) had left at some unearthly hour to arrive by 9.30. The band played pre-service music as the congregation and assorted dignitaries (including the General himself!) took their seats and played well during the service - a beautiful arrangement called 'A Gift of Love'. The acoustic of the hall, while a little 'boomy' for the spoken word, was ideal for transmitting 'The Portsmouth Sound'...this band has a special sound of its own, almost magically passed from generation to generation and it has been my privilege to have played with them now for over a quarter of a century (and 23 years as principal euphonium).

After lunch a pre-meeting concert included 'Prelude on Finlandia', Evelyn Glennie's beautiful 'A Little Prayer', 'Hymns of Praise' and 'To Regions Fair' (at quick-march tempo!) In the service the Gullidge march - 'The Fount' was very well-received. It is quite a thrill for me to realise that there are some 20 others in the band now who are younger than me - including 10 teenagers! The band is certainly playing better right now than at any time since 1987 and I'm sure PCB has a bright future ahead of it (as well as almost 130 years of history behind)!

So...having been a player/performer at four events it was finally time to sit back and enjoy someone else...

Francis (Frank) Dunnery explained the concept behind his House Concerts as his way of falling back in love with performing music. Having fronted 'It Bites' from 1984 until he left in 1990 and then launched a successful Stateside solo career he tells us he had 'been there and done it all'...Letterman, stadiums, drugs, alcoholism...the rock and roll life. But he reached the point where he'd had enough...so much so he withdrew to Vermont to train horses!

It was at this point that he wondered what it would be like to play small, intimate concerts in friends'/fans' front rooms! A notice on his website generated 3000 expressions of interest...and Sunday night's 'House Concert' was held in Geoff Banks's kitchen in Surbiton. About 32 people I counted crammed into the kitchen (complete with oven cooking spicy vegetable cous-cous for the after-show barbecue), some on chairs, some on floor cushions and others standing. Frank was nearer to me than I am now to my PC monitor - even closer than my first House Concert experience in Southampton a couple of years ago. Tonight was the 'It Bites and Ego' concert, Frank taking the opportunity to expound some of his philosophical views between the songs (he is studying philosophy and is also a confirmed devotee of astrology*).

His renewed interest in larger-scale concerts is about to be rubber-stamped with a band he calls 'The New Progressives' and a tour/album follow later this month. He has revisited many old It Bites songs for this tour and we heard very different acoustic versions of some of them in Geoff's kitchen on Sunday. With the added bonus of Frank's driver/merchandise seller being the lovely Dorrie Jackson - and hence she was able to lend us her gorgeous backing vocals - Frank sang us an almost unrecognisable 'Kiss Like Judas', 'Yellow Christian', 'Whole New World', the unreleased 'Holiday', 'Sister Sarah' and 'Underneath Your Pillow' as well as 'Back in NYC' from 'Lamb Lies Down' and finishing with 'Still Too Young To Remember'. We all sang along, Lewis and I adding harmony vocals, of course (Frank certainly noticed and appreciated this - actually taking hold of my arm and grinning appreciativelyat the end of one song ...wow!)

Afterwards, a 'meet and greet' where we were all treated as old friends and I learned the identity of the lady opposite me who I had noticed had sang every word of every song all evening - it was Frank's sister Fay - and she was very friendly and encouraging especially to Lewis, the budding guitarist! What a lovely evening and, yes, very much a surreal feeling to have been so very close to someone whose music has brought me so much joy and inspiration for so long!

The epilogue...back to Sidcup to pick up Ieuan and once more round the M25 and down theA3...arriving home well after 1am on Monday morning - It Bites music on shuffle keeping us awake and still singing on the journey, of course!

He shall have music wherever he goes!


*as I said to Lewis on the way home..."fantastic musician, great songs, lovely guy...mad as a fish!"