Helen’s Evil Twin had a gig with Danse Macabre last night in Brighton. These two bands often tour together because Taylor and Helen play in both of them. We played at the Globe in Brighton, which is a small, friendly pub, near the sea.
The drum kit and several folks came down in a vehicle affectionately known as Camper Van Helsgin, which is an old VW minibus that does not have heat in it. They showed up shivering and then unloaded all the gear. There were sound check and the normal stuff. HET was on first. I always write out chord changes on my set list because when I get nervous, I cannot remember things well. At least my hands weren’t shaking – not that it’s a bad effect on a fretless bass. I made more mistakes than I would in a rehearsal, but it was mostly ok. At the end, there was a guy yelling for more. Yay for happy people. I like playing in a band!
While DM was on, the snow began falling in earnest and settling. (Brits say “settling.” Americans say “sticking.”) I looked out the window and saw giant snowflakes blowing sideways. Yikes. DM played many of the same songs from the last time I saw them in Worchester, several of which are on their disk the Golden Age of Ballooning. They were a bit tighter than last time and more in tune. Also, Steph, their bassist has gotten an electric upright bass. It sounds really really good. Apparently, she just got it, so only played it for a few songs. I think she might be just learning it? Her hand positions look self-taught, but her sound says she known what she’s doing.
After the show we packed up ASAP and then did some car shuffling to get everybody dropped as close to where they live as possible. DM has a strong trans following, mostly mtf. (Alas, HET does not yet have a dedicated ftm fan base.) So I ended up in the van of a fan as we set out on the frozen snowy roads.
We stopped to buy hot drinks and use the loo at a petrol station outside of Brighton, but they sold out of everything as we arrived. Alas. I think that’s where I dropped my phone.
I thought the snow would get worse as we went north, but instead it lightened up until there was nothing settling in London. So I got home to Xena in one piece. Down a mobile phone, but fun anyway.
Speaking of which, I hadn’t been able to get my phone to sync with my computer for weeks, so I may have lost your number. If you think I should have your number, please email it to me.
Tag: helen’s evil twin
Gig Report: Worcester Music Festival
On Friday afternoon, Ash Surrey of Danse Macabre and her partner came and picked up me and Hoops of Helen’s Evil Twin. We set off for the Worcester Music Festival where both our bands played gigs. Worcester is in the Midlands, somewhere near Birmingham. The rural area around it, the shire, is, of course Worcestershire, and is the region where Worcestershire sauce originates. Alas, it usually contains anchovies, so I did not eat any of it while away.
Anyway, Friday afternoon traffic on the M25 is a drag and we arrived in the evening and met up with the remaining members of HET and Danse Macabre. They came separately in a 70’s-era VW minibus, which apparently has been on many music tours. The van is affectionately known as Camper van Helsing, a joke that never stops being funny.
After checking in to the Travel Lodge, we went out to drink and catch some live music. The festival organizers went to just about every bar and café in central Worcester and asked them if they would host live musicians for three days and not charge admission. Every event was free and there were many participating venues. The one we went to was the one HET was to play the following night, the Marr’s Bar. On Friday night, the BBC was there broadcasting live. They had a big canvas BBC banner on the wall behind the stage, ringed by fairy lights and posters up explaining that this was all live on the radio.
One guy that was playing was Nigel Clark, a Brummie who was a member of the 90’s pop band Dodgy. They were very popular in the UK, but I don’t think I’d heard of them in the states. He was quite good. I like his music a lot and his stage chatter was also very entertaining. He explained he was going to leave the curse words out of one of his songs due to the radio broadcast. And on one of his songs, during the intro he said that all the home listeners would be wondering why so many people in the bar were talking while he was playing (the background chatter level was kind of typical for a bar) and he improvised a verse about not talking during the performance. The room fell very quiet. It was nicely done.
I was really excited about the BBC being there, but they only do live broadcasts on Friday nights and would not be back for our gig, alas. After the music was over, we went back to the hotel and got drunk and then started horsing around with ukuleles and other instruments until about 2 AM. I felt kind of guilty about this, but I think that we didn’t keep anybody else awake. I hope.
We woke up kind of late Saturday morning and after breakfast went to Danse Macabre’s venue. They’re a goth band. Their drummer is Helen of HET and they have the same violinist as HET, but their own bassist and lead singer. The lead singer put on black renaisance faire trousers and ruffly white shirt and a black jacket and top hat and a lot of skull-related jewelry, including a large, sparkly skull belt buckle. She put on black lipstick and all that. Watching her transform from slightly eccentric street clothes to goth was kind of amazing.
They played some songs from their album “The Golden Age of Ballooning” and a song about Worcestershire sauce, which included such facts as the inventor of it and the typical ingredients. And they played some songs from a rock opera about evil squirrels. The subject matter was very eclectic.
We hung around for one more act, which was Smiley Mic, a guy with some looping pedals, making pop music by looping himself. He was was musically very good, but his lyrics all tended to be about how he was one guy laying down loops. Then we went to Marr’s Bar for HET’s sound check.
The bar has a really good stage, a great PA and a good sound guy. I had my own monitor speaker. We did the sound check and it was amazing because we could actually hear each other, which is not something that happens often on stage. I was kind of nervous, but we were on second and so the audience was people who came with us and other bands waiting to sound check and that was it. The first guy was on for maybe 10 minutes and was really good. I had a bunch of mistakes when we actually played and didn’t feel good about it, but the rest of the band was very happy. While I was putting my bass away, a bloke from the audience approached Helen and started talking enthusiastically about how great we were. I guess it doesn’t matter that I forgot the bassline to our song summarizing Jane Eyre?
I caught another band, who was also very cool and then left to get some food and then put my bass back into the hotel and caught the last few bands of the evening, on 4 and 5 hours after we started. The crowd had grown a lot. The last band, And What Will Be Left of Them, was playing their last-ever gig and they and the audience were both getting kind of emotional about it. Understandable as they were really good. Actually, all of the Worcester and Midlands-based bands on were really good. Really fun, really musically strong. Worcester is cool.
So I was highly impressed by the Worcester music scene. I suspect we will play there again and will probably also play in Birmingham and Manchester around December and January when we expect to be selling our album. Anybody who wants a rock band to play a show and then kip in their house around that time is highly encouraged to leave a comment or drop a line, because free lodging really helps with the going-into-debit thing that can be a downside of touring.
On Sunday, we headed back into London. I arrived at my flat in the afternoon, too burnt to do much but veg out. I’m quite enjoying the rock and roll life style, but my next major task needs to be to really really memorize the nine songs on our set list. I’ve got them, but not as solidly not-having-to-think-about-it as I’d like. And then, our set list should grow longer as things get recorded. Also, some of the songs could use better basslines, which requires time and thought and stuff, something I should be able to manage before our next gig on the 25 of September in Whitechapel.
My personal next gig is not with the rock band, but is a noise music thing coming up on Wednesday at the Foundry in London. I’ll be playing my synthesizer. Starts at 7pm. I don’t know what time I’ll be on, but it’s free. In the basement.
Gig Report: The Royal Vauxhal Tavern
I’ve recently joined a rock band, Helen’s Evil Twin and last night was my first gig with them. It was their highest profile show yet and one of the biggest pop music gigs that I’ve ever played. We were at the Wotever Extravaganza, part of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern‘s Hot August Fringe Festival.
The RVT used to be a music hall. This was a form of mass entertainment that predated things like radio and TV. The working classes would cram into cabaret theatres and watch people sing and play piano and dance, etc. So the club has a long bar on one wall and then the seating is arranged in a sort of semi-circular pattern, facing a small stage. Upstairs, there is a kitchen, an office, a large room holding many stage props and upstairs from that there are dressing rooms and a flat that somebody seems to live in.
Helen, the guitarist (every third British woman is named Helen), and I met early in the afternoon and loaded up her drum kit and two very tiny amplifiers into a hired car and took them to the RVT, but they ended up not being used, as the other band decided an hour beforehand to hire much better gear. In the UK, it seems to be very common that rock acts will share drum kits and amps at shows, whereas, in the States, every band seems to bring their own gear.
The show started at six with some poets and then DJ + dancing and then some cabaret acts and then DJ + dancing. Some of the acts were quite compelling. Two highlights were Jet Moon doing her bit about “Femme Packing,” which is fun. And Michael Twaits did part of his show, Icons and a piece about the Stonewall Riots, which I’ve seen him do about three times now and I get a lump in my throat every time, because it is so very excellent.
I went up to our dressing room to get changed. Taylor, the violinist came up and reported that there was a naked man on stage, speaking like the characters from The Sims, and smearing himself with paint. We tuned our instruments and when we heard echos of Ingo’s voice booming from below, we walked down to have a very brief tech check while another DJ was spinning tunes and a few people danced.
We hadn’t had a sound check, so the tech was asking questions and running cables. It was very suboptimal, but half the band hadn’t been able to show up until after the event started and it probably didn’t make sense to check with only bass and guitar. So we waited around back stage and I tried not to be overly nervous. Hoops, the drummer, said, “this is so exciting! It’s like being back stage before a gig!”
The club was packed, but Wotever audiences are very friendly. I was just concerned about making mistakes, as I’m new and all the songs had completely left my head. I had written out the chords next to song titles on my set list, so if the basslines completely escaped me, at least I could play the right roots.
Ingo came out and announced as and mentioned that I was the new bassist and people cheered. The stage lights were very bright, so I couldn’t really see people, except for one guy close to the front who seemed to fancy me. We started playing through our set and I wasn’t screwing up as much as I feared, so that was ok. And people were cheering and dancing in the front. When Helen said we were nearly done, a large number of people yelled “more” at us. We were like fucking rock stars!
I went upstairs and changed back into my street clothes and then watched the next band, The Blow Waves, who describe themselves as “the campest band in the world.” They were very fun.
Post Mortem
I need to be less nervous and have more stage presence. Also, I need to wear earplugs, as my ears were ringing like mad after wards. Sound checks are almost always a good thing. I think, in general, we should stand farther forward, take up more space, and own the stage more, because we could totally be rock stars. Or at least, I totally want to be a rock star, which is almost the same thing. With screaming fans, dancing people and dressing rooms!
I’m thinking I might want to write a few songs about pop music topics: love, sex and death. And by sex, I mean gender, of course.
Our next gig is in the West Midlands at Worchester Pride, on 22 August at the Mars Bar.