“NO PLAYSTATIONS OR I-PODS FOR US JUST HOMESPUN HONEST LIVE MUSIC”


I wouldn’t call myself a proper musician so much as a noisy bastard that hangs out with proper mu- sicians, and likes to have a bash. I can play guitar reasonably well these days, although to be blunt I just treat it as a tuneable drum to accompany whatever I’m singing about. My Grandma was a re- spected concert hall singer in her day and always drummed it into me “It’s no use singing Andrew, if people can’t hear what you’re singing about”. I hold to this maxim to this day - I rarely sing anything unless it has depth and meaning to me, or at the very least will raise a few belly laughs. I seem to sw- ing wildly between truculent protest songs and comedy songs about allotments or motorway building.


I currently run a reasonably successful folk and acoustic open mic club every Tuesday night in Colne, and never cease to marvel at the mixture of different shapes and sizes of musicians it attracts. We are blessed with regular outstanding performances, and are also able to accommodate new comers and folk that would otherwise be too nervous to get up on a stage and have a go. Colne is an astoundingly musical town - probably the main reason I ended up staying here following many years of gadding around, being itine- rant, and never settling anywhere for more than a year.


The folk and acoustic club’s been going over a year and a half now, and is split between two venues on an alternate basis. Week one: The Admiral Lord Rodneys. Week two: The Queens. Both are excellent boozers in their own right and the alternation seems to lend a vitality and looseness to the club that means it never gets stale or becomes the same old deal week in week out. Things really get swinging when everyone’s well oiled later in the evening. Impromptu jams and musical partnerships start to form and the level of talent and passion never fails to impress.


It’s been a long journey so far but I was off to a good start being brought up in a musical family. My Mum and Dad ran a couple of folk clubs in Bradford back in the 60s and 70s. My Sister and I would be sent off to bed and then go to sleep listening to them practising downstairs. I must say what a privilege that was, no playstations or i-pods for us, just homespun honest live music. Fantastic. My Dad reckoned he could sing and play over


500 songs all the way through “off the top of his head”. By this he meant from memory without referring to any sheet music. I have no idea how many songs he could perform with music, but have always remained impressed with his ability to remember so many chord sequences and verses.


I never learnt to read music very well. I was forced to have piano lessons as a kid – a well meant but ultimately badly received gesture at trying to get me started in the musical world. Dad took me to the tip one day with his little trailer to drop off a load of garden waste and rubble. Another guy arrived and dropped off an upright piano that had a few of the keys bust. My Dad was straight over and after a few minutes of poking around in the internal gubbins, made the guys working there an offer. They took £20 off him and we strapped the piano down laid flat on his tiny trailer. I never thought he’d get it home in one piece but he managed it somehow and then set to repairing the smashed dowels and hammers.


My musical career was about to begin. Wee- kly lessons and half an hour’s forced practice every evening after school quickly became a battle of wills. I hated it, and always lost. All I wanted to do was play out on my BMX, climb trees, or tear round the estate on my roller skates. My parents, however, were resolute in making me stick to the routine. I never progressed beyond rank amateur, and all it really achieved was to put me off learning any musical instrument until late into my twenties. Like I said, a well meant gesture on my folk’s behalf, but I always have been an awkward bugger.


Later in my teens I realised I wanted the vitality and credence a musical lifestyle could bring, but lacked the dedication and discipline to actually practise. I was thrown out of the fa- mily home at 16 for being hedonistic, drinking too much and generally kicking against any boundaries lain before me. Lost and bewilde- red, it took me years to get back on my feet. A very small fish in a big pond, I lacked many of the social skills needed to survive on my own. I had never before encountered liars and scammers, rip-off merchants or thieves. By the time I got to university at the age of 21, I had travelled around a fair lot, seen more that the average middle class kid, and had a very different perspective on what was important in life. University seemed like a kindergarten and I was quickly bored with many of the students’ two dimensional safe and predictable lives. The only thing I did at university with any de- gree of dedication and regularity – other that party like hell – was to attend the weekly folk club. This served to re-affirm that musicians were the kind of people I wanted to hang out with. Watching TV or listening to records was all fair and well, but an entirely passive experience. I still needed to get loads of stuff off my chest, and what better way than to put it into music. I was an angry young man, appalled at life’s gross injustices and man’s seemingly limitless capacity to be evil and inhumane to others and the planet we inhabit. Stage two of my musical career (if I can call it that) had begun. I sang every week, accom- panying others who could play guitar, fiddle or whatever, and developed what I thought was a passable voice. I still couldn’t play anything though. After a couple of years one of my friends got a loan to buy himself a half decent


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