The Grain 15

♪♫ Band No.4 -

MOMENTO MORI ♫♪

vocals - Mania Rose, guitar - Sid Philpotts

lead guitar - Bobby Max, drums - Ozy

with special guests: keyboards - Kate Twilight, bass - Jay Time

This was also a live debut for the newest band to join the co-operative, Momento Mori, brainchild of Sid Philpotts and Mania Rose, beefed up with the blistering feedback laden guitar of Bobby "Give It" Max (pictured left) and a somewhat transient line-up beyond. On this occasion, that was a drummer I simply knew as 'Ozy', along with Jay and Kate on loan from Magic Moments (the second of their three performances that day). Together, they reminded me of a freeform version of vintage Jefferson Airplane and clearly had the time of their life up there. Their act started with the hauntingly attractive figure of Mania Rose, resplendent in hooded cloak, walking to the front of the flower covered set, clutching the microphone and reciting from an old nursery rhyme; "Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town, some in rags and some in tags, and one in a velvet gown." At which point, Jay's bass line cuts in and it all begins to flow, at least as far as TC's talents would stretch. Standing to one side of the stage, I could hear all the finger-blurring intricacies of Bobby's guitar work from the monitors, but out front (and confirmed on the live recording later) it was all but invisible due to being placed so low down in the mix by our unfortunate choice of P.A. man. And Bobby was a seriously good guitarist; I remember one time he was at my old place having a play with all our technology. Showing off a bit, I played him the opening sequence from Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile". He smiled, "Yeah, that's good," he nodded, "you've almost got it." He beckoned me to pass him my guitar, on which he then showed me how it should be done. In spite of TC's shortcomings, Momento Mori played a memorable set, Mania comfortably running the show from the front. And when she wasn't, and the guys were jamming with free wheels a-rolling, she'd simply gather up flowers from the stage set and pass them around the audience, something people were still talking about for months after. Unfortunately, I can't offer you a photo of Sid, who is sadly no longer with us, and Mania, who has asked, for deeply personal reasons, not to be identified beyond the name of Mania Rose. She is still involved in the performing arts and has a couple of really decent tracks up on You Tube, which I'd love to be able to direct you to, but I think it's more important to respect her wishes here. I think I probably wronged her in the past, which I'll come to when we get to that part of the story, and wouldn't want to repeat the mistake. She has, however, written a highly readable and heartfelt memoir of The Grain, for which I am in her debt, complete with a dark warmth and a quality of honesty that left me a little moist of eye come the end. It's in the form of a five page essay, which is available here as a PDF, simply click on the image and enjoy muchly.

♪♫ Band No.6 -

MAGIC MOMENTS A.T.T. ♫♪

guitar / keyboards - Mick Magic, vocals - Shona Moments

keyboards - Kate Twilight, bass / synths - Jay Time

Now we were a P.A. man's dream, we had our own 16 channel mixer and simply presented them with two outputs, one pan left, one pan right, et voila! It would take a special kind of idiot to fuck that up. I'd been kind of expecting an act of sabotage. TC and I had been toe to toe and imitating hair-dryers a couple of times already (I wasn't alone), and I did wonder when TC insisted on having my guitar separate, rather than in our main mix as usual. We did four of our predominantly electronic tracks to open; so far, so good. But you can say that all the way down from the cliff top. Sure enough, as it came to the first guitar based track, "Us Weirdos Gotta Stick Together", he demonstrated that he was indeed that special kind of idiot. As I hit the opening chord, I could barely hear anything else, you'd think the man had never worked for a band that had an electric guitar before. In spite of his toxic nature and (I suspect, wilful) incompetence, I seem to remember it being a decent gig, and almost certainly in front of the biggest crowd we'd played in front of. Hey, we even got an encore (which was lucky coz we'd rehearsed for one), so we

☼ G R A I N Y M E M O R I E S ☺

"The best thing for me? I would answer that question as follows: It was great to embark on a musical collaboration with, and to sing alongside, the legendary Chris Carter."

Shona Moments (Magic Moments At Twilight Time)

♪♫ Band No.5 -

SLACK BLADDER ♫♪

bass / voice / videos - Martin Crook

guitar / keyboards / loops - Andrew Bullock

drum programmes / tapes - Neale Brodie

L-R: Martin, Neale and Andy contemplate the nature of offensiveness...

☼ G R A I N Y M E M O R I E S ☺

"I was there! I think I'm quite ashamed of my behaviour that day, but can't remember much! However, I do remember Slack Bladder's first and maybe last performance. Things went horribly wrong for them. And as for the sound engineer, I remember some artists got quite irate with him. Great day out though. Shame there wasn't a second one."

Ian West (loyal Grain fan, albeit a gobby one!)

My heart went out to Slack Bladder that day, they really seemed to bear the brunt of TC's reluctance to do his job properly. He could barely cope with the regular guitar, bass, drums and vocal combos, let alone with this inventive crew's mix of electronics, tape loops and live sound. Having already made a hash of getting them ready to go in the first place, TC continued to lose sounds in the mix, and forget they needed to hear themselves as well, all the way through the opening track. Martin's sardonic comment after it; "Sorry about this, but you're probably used to it." rather says it all. They soldiered on gallantly but the explosion was not far away. Quite suddenly (though far from unexpectedly), Martin completely lost it at the end of one track; "Look!" He shouted, "We're not getting a fucking thing out of these monitors, we can't hear the drum machine at all, what are you fucking trying to do!?" How they got through their set without running from the stage and kicking the living shit out of TC, probably with the help of the numerous others he'd already pissed off or offended, I will never understand, but get through it they did. The reaction from the audience was, at best, mixed. I don't think everybody realised just how much they had been affected by TC's complete lack of co-operation. I overheard one reveller describe them as "talentless no-hopers" and put them straight immediately (and hopefully not too impolitely). As a musician myself, I knew Martin to be a decent bass player. And I'd had the pleasure of working with Andy personally on a couple of the At Twilight Time projects, one of which, "Kotsatros", appeared on "Grain-Aid!", and he is far from talentless, believe me. Nowadays working under the name Andy Bolus / Evil Moisture, he is highly respected in his field. Luckily, it wasn't their last gig, but I would bet it's one the poor bastards have tried hard to forget over the years!

☼ G R A I N Y M E M O R I E S ☺

"I would have to say that the best thing about being involved with The Grain was being part of such a diverse group of musicians and artists, yet who shared a common vision of bringing live music and events to the local scene, often in highly imaginative and spontaneous ways. Just as important though, was the support and encouragement of all the artists involved, though maybe not said, this was exemplified by mutually supporting each other by showing up at each others gigs and events (and in the pub). I can't speak for Andy or Neale, but having a platform with other bands meant a degree of exposure for Slack Bladder that we probably would not have achieved alone. My gratitude is due to you, Mick, as well as Jay, Kate (terribly missed), Chris Carter and all of The Charles, as well as Craig, Paul, Alex and Rory of Greed (with whom we enjoyed a fair few impromptu intoxicated gigs at night in some woods in Frimley Green). We simply couldn't have done it without The Grain."

Martin Crook (Slack Bladder)

must have been doing something right. On reflection, the most poignant bit for me was looking up from my guitar at one point (mostly, I had to watch the fret-board so I didn't play bum notes!) and seeing my dad discreetly watching us from the back of the crowd, obviously having managed to escape mum's Sunday 'to do' list for an hour or so. He never made it as far as our first CD in 1995, bless him, so I dedicated the album to him. I remember, as we were leaving the stage and waving goodbye, just stopping briefly to take in the audience and whisper "wow" to myself. And that was even ithout knowing that somewhere in it was a 16 year old girl who would later become my third wife and the mother of my child. Small world...