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My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 2/10/99 - The Pump & Tap

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The Pump & Tap was one of my favourite pubs in Leicester where I drank REGULARLY, but never as an actual REGULAR, for the entire 14 years I lived in that fair city. The early gigs we did there were BRILLIANT - we go PAID, not only in CA$H but also with AS MUCH BEER AS WE COULD DRINK. You always had to play two sets, the SECOND of which would be of markedly lower quality than the first, mostly due to the second part of the payment. ALSO, if you said it was your birthday they'd make you a drink featuring one shot from EVERY ONE of the optics, which you then had to DOWN IN ONE. You'd think people would exploit this generosity by saying it was their birthday when it wasn't, and you'd be right... but nobody ever did it twice.

Anyway, I'd booked us a Validators gig so that we could have a chance to play together and practice new material. There were eleven of us in the band at that time and I was initially worried about how we'd fit everyone on stage - the Pump & Tap HAD a massive stage but it was covered over with beer crates and carpets, so the bands tended to play on a large STEP leading up to some railway arches. How would we fit in a keyboard player, string section, two guitars, drums, bass, and backing choir?

I needn't have worried - come the night, only Tim and I could turn up. These days of course the idea of a band being JUST the drummer and guitarist/singer is not considered particularly STRANGE - The White Stripes have made it COOL and I often see bands playing without any kind of bass player at all. Call me old fashioned but I think, as a permanent arrangement, it's just WRONG to have a band without a bass player, it's not like it's HARD to find one, and you can always get a crap guitarist to do it, or indeed the singer's girlfriend. Not even BOTHERING just seems lazy to me, but The Kids, they don't seem to mind.

Back then, however, it was considered a rum old do, especially when it was me and Tim doing it. Now, don't get me wrong here, Tim and I work together as a TEAM very well - if you need a large round of BEER buying and fetching back from the table, then we are your men, or if you need a complicated plan for getting to and from a gig with train timetables, babysitting, places to sleep, equipment AND space for a long conversation about album covers then HEY! Call us in for consultancy! But just the two of us playing together has always been a bit problematic. This is because we are both so very SOULFUL.

Allow me to explain. I always think there are TWO kinds of drummers. The first kind is the sort that gets churned out by music lessons - accurate, full of knowledge about different techniques (and they're ALWAYS rude sounding names, like RIMMING - no matter HOW much you TRAIN a drummer they will always BE a drummer) and the history of drumming, and OBSESSED with "tuning" their "skins". These drummers will play exactly the same patterns in PRECISE time every time they play a song, are "interested" in Prog Rock because of the "interesting" "rhythmic patterns", and will have a very clean car, in order to keep their "kit" in top condition. Example of this type of drummer: COLLINS.

The OTHER sort of drummer has very little of this knowledge, having learnt ON THE STREETS - and THE STREETS tend to be a bit noisy due to all the traffic, so people who learn that way tend to be VERY LOUD INDEED. These sort of drummers are LIVING ENGINES OF SOUL, are all OVER the place with timing, don't really mind WHAT they're playing as long as they ARE playing, and their car will be a BLOODY MESS. Examples of this type of drummer: STARR.

Tim, of course, is very much the latter. There is NONE more soulful drummer... especially after a few beers. This is all very beautiful and wonderful, EXCEPT when he's paired only with a guitarist who ALSO learnt ON THE STREET, and DELIGHTS in exactly the same "soulful" skills. When that happens things tend to get VERY VERY FAST INDEED, as one of us gets a bit excited and speeds up. The other one hears this and thinks "Well, HE must know what he's doing, faster it is!" The first party then discovers he's not going fast ENOUGH, and things RAMP UP until that 5/4 time medieval lament we thought we'd have a go at turns into DEATH METAL, and the whole set is over in fifteen minutes. ALSO, neither of us can talk next morning due to all the SHOUTING.

And that is exactly what happened on this particular night. My main memory of the actual gig is a lot of flashing lights and a MIGHTY BREEZE at my back as Tim beat the living shit out of his drums, accompanied by an occasional gentle SPANG! as another one of my strings snapped. By the end of it we surrounded by broken strings and SAWDUST, and DRENCHED in sweat. And so were the audience.

I'd like to say it's like having The Jimi Hendrix Experience without Noel Redding to keep it all under control, but that might perhaps be overstating it a little bit - if The Experience had been playing I'm sure SOMEBODY would have been able to meet their eye, or indeed would have SPOKEN to them afterwards. Whatever, we still got the free beer and we still stood around half-deafly SHOUTING about how GRATE we were, but it would be a long long time until the two of us played without any Classically Trained Validators on hand to keep us in check. Sometimes, you can be just TOO soulful.


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