Jon and Libby

It was back to Stoke last week to Electric Tentacle at the Captain's Bar, the scene of our EMOM debut last December. This time, I'd managed to secure the offer of a lift from a curious old school friend, keen to find out what goes on at these things, and to hear the kind of racket Libby and I make.  The Electric Tentacle, all set up and ready to rock...  Now, I should point out that this friend of mine is something high up in the traffic department of Stockport Council, and had that weekend's Stockport County FC homecoming parade to plan for the following morning (meetings with the police, the organisers, business representatives, residents, etc, to plan which streets would be closed and when, how the traffic would be re-routed and to where, and so on. Basically a lot of organising, detail and faff to sort through) so he'd have to leave at 22:30 at the latest to get into work for 7am. Fine, it was only 7pm when we arrived. The gig was slow to begin, and a couple of act...

It's a long way to Shrewsbury by car from Darkest Cheshire, but armed with Marjorie the satnav, a splendid sunny morning, and Ned's Atomic Dustbin on Spotify (first two albums on shuffle and repeat, lovely), it was plain sailing right until I hit the outskirts of the town. Being an ancient market town built on a loop in the River Severn, access by car is limited to a single road down past the railway station. It took about half an hour to travel the final mile or so. The event itself had been moved at short notice from Albert & Co, which has an intimate, friendly vibe, to Albert's Shed, which is a much larger venue by EMOM or any other standards. I estimate you could get 200+ people in there and still have space to dance. So, obviously, on a glorious Saturday afternoon when most people would be out and about, it was going to be a struggle to get an audience, but no matter! It's not how big it is, but what you do with it that counts. First up was Torsk. His set had a...

It was back to Manchester on Thursday this week, for Bleep #16. This is a significant event for me. First, it marks a year since I first descended the badly-lit steps to the venue space beneath the Peer Hat, and heard some things that made my inner idiot command me to do something in response. A genuine epiphany. A year on, and I'm about to do my 6th gig, having never been on a stage since an ill-fated attempt at a punk band at school. We walked on to silence, played four terrible songs to silence, walked off to silence, and vowed never to do it again. It was clearly the right decision for all involved, especially our audience. But I digress. It's exactly 40 years later, and time for tonight's acts, such as I had time to see before my train called me away to bed and the usual 6:30 start on Friday morning. First up was WhereIsRoamer, who previously graced the Bleep stage last summer with a live set. With a look seemingly influenced by Marc Bolan and Robert Smith, we were tre...

  Behold, the classic two table setup! Last night saw Libby and I fire up Marjorie the satnav app to head north of Manchester and over the border into the People's Republic of Wet Yorkshire (a private joke with a sadly deceased friend and proud Yorkshireman). I call the app Marjorie because if I say anything remotely resembling "Google"  anywhere near the phone, it will stop giving directions, and then I'm lost. Along the M60 and up the M62 we went. That was the easy part. Marjorie was hoarse from giving directions through towns and villages made of Pennine sandstone by the time we reached the Golden Lion in Todmorden for the April EMOM, ably created and run by big Dave Walker, A.K.A Mho. I'd been told on Monday that a couple of acts had dropped out, and could we play for a bit longer? After a bit of a faff, I got a 5th song tagged onto the end of the set and away we went.  None of the acts other than Lenta Consulta and I had arrived, so we both set up on the trad...

"...very expensive to those who can't." The art of learning, according to the highly influential book Management of Training Programs (published in 1960 and still referenced today), consists of four basic stages: unconscious incompetence ("Yeah, I'm musical - I've got loads of CDs. How difficult can playing the piano be?"), conscious incompetence ("It turns out that playing the piano is really hard!"), conscious competence ("Right, I can play Chopsticks , but I have to concentrate..."), and unconscious competence ("Yeah, I can play Chopsticks as fast as you like. Watch this!") Anyway, it as come to my attention (mainly listening to my early stuff on SoundCloud) that I could do with learning to mix properly, thereby progressing from what is clearly the lowest form of unconscious incompetence. To this end, a couple of months ago, I set about the task by abandoning everything I thought I knew and starting again from first pri...

...but this town never drags me down.  Yes, last Thursday the relentless monthly carousel of EMOM nights landed once again on BLEEP in Manchester, accompanied by the kind of rain that seems at first to be far too light to be of any consequence but is actually deeply penetrating, and quickly soaks you to the bone. But dodging puddles on Newton Street, I didn't care. The performance space below the Peer Hat is warm and welcoming.  My train was late into God's own city, and by the time I arrived and grabbed a pint, the space was already filling with familiar faces ...and an enigmatic lady in sunglasses, clad in black, and sitting still and alone, staring at the stage.  The night wasn't as well-attended as usual, but I can safely say that before my 9pm home time called for a 6:30am Friday start, we would all be in for many diverse treats.  First up was Neural Maker, a very interesting and creative DJ. Now, normally, I can take or leave DJs, but this guy is something else...

An unexpectedly cold night, but snuggled up at home with a glass of slutty Merlot to keep me company and the promise of a live stream from the Sonicstate Bath EMOM #4, I was planning on staying put. The format for the evening was pre-recorded interviews with each act chatting about their influences and sound, followed by their live performance. This is an excellent technique that I hope that other livestreamed EMOM organisers follow it because it allows the viewer to understand where the performers are coming from before they play. However, the first act needed no such introduction as it was the one and only Martin Christie. The man we really should call the Creator, Originator, or Founder. Without Martin, it's likely that EMOM would still refer to a form of tortuous interval training. He began the movement as a reaction to having to perform at "normal" open mic nights, surrounded by dreary acoustic guitars and depressing sets of moribund noodling. His brand of poésie con...