Darkest Thoughts

Feel a bit knackered…me too….Craig and I are half way to Hull [twinned with your darkest thought], to play the Adelphi, one of my favourite venues, and we’re always competing for bad health. I thought I was a hypochondriac until I met him, now I’m not so sure. He’s pretty good at being ill and matches me symptom for symptom. Thing is my hearing has died in one ear. I think it’s the old wax issue and no amount of finger shoving seems to have any effect. So let the moaning begin. The traffic on this woebegone Friday night is not good and neither is the latte in the services; we finally arrive at 7pm and meet up with Jim the sound engineer who is one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. Jim sorts us out. I’m still moaning about my hearing when Craig and I have one of our little tiffs about sound and volume and stage balance and it all feels a bit silly. I apologise and then we’re off to the pub with John Hirst who has lovingly gate-crashed the sound check in the name of modern art. Pretty much everything about John is done in the name of modern art. That’s artists for you. John will soon be making his VP recording debut on the new album, his collection of pound shop paraphernalia must be heard to be believed. I first met John in Belfast with Bill Drummond so we have a bit of a history [John works with Bill]. We talk about getting our hair cut, every month for a year in a different barbers, a notion I find totally appealing. I just need to get my act together. There is lot more information on how to go about this at www.penkilnburn.com which is Bills site. I respectfully suggest you check it out. The pub is rammed as Hull are on the telly. A local fan informs me they have never won a televised game….and tonight they lose again. We find a quiet corner and talk about our fantasy quest to destroy all Irish Traditional Music. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but someone’s got to. We also cover the paranoia of masculinity, the lunacy of the Blair and the phallacy of Dion Dublin. Throughout all this I’m having finger sex with my right ear and moaning about deafness. We return to the venue and catch Ted Key who used to be in The Housmartins, we know this because he covers most of their hits in his set and makes continual reference to what might have been. He’s a bit of a cabaret compere type. They have clubs up north for people like him apparently. I start the gig with The Hairdresser poem which is my little ode to the all seeing mirror of personal reflection. I still get nervous at the Hairdressers…but all that’s about to change when I hit the barbers. Half way through the set and John requests ‘Egg Incident’ from the Growing up with VP album which we manage to do without breaking a string or bumming a note. It’s nice when people ask for stuff even if they are people you know. We also get a request for ‘We didn’t paint our nails’ which we do for the encore. Thank you Adam for that…sorry we couldn’t manage the lift back to Manchester. OK so the attendance could have been better, but as ever we really enjoyed meeting people afterwards, catching up with people at gigs is always a pleasure. Some people I spoke with last saw me in Devon three years ago…and bought new albums and were very positive. Perhaps I am the Jonathan Coe of alt pop after all? Well that was their take on it, and it'll do for now. No pictures from Hull...so instead, my mother and daughter, best, VPx

Wellingtons

I realise I’ve been neglectful in updating this diary so apologies all round should you have checked and been found wanting. It’s just a lazy spell I’m going through I think partly because it’s all been a bit slow, what with the album delays, damaged hard drives, disputed working methods, broken speakers and cancelled tours the up factor would appear to be waning somewhat. Still thanks be to those people who continue to say hi, come to shows and wave a demented fist in the face of the enemy within. I do appreciate it. I spent the best part of the day mooching from room to room, losing stuff, finding it and losing it again [I seem to excell at loss]. One part of the it in question is a CD Craig and I have recorded for Salford Lads Club who have a community arts Ghost Camp open night on the 3rd of November and have lost their copy. Today, Sunday I find it again and will drop it off this afternoon. Les from the Lads club popped into our rehearsal with his official clipboard the other night and persuaded Mike and I to have our pictures taken wearing the new Salford Lads T Shirt. The picture has been posted on the Salford Lads site. I do hope it doesn’t put too many potential buyers off. Meanwhile Craig and I are heading south for Wellington on a warm and windswept Thursday with our open neck shirts and our mineral water. For reasons that I can’t quite remember Craig and I have started a fantasy band called Mineral Water. The gig has been rescheduled from the original Haygate venue [where we played as band last year] to a new pub called the Queens. We arrive in good time, have a Guinness, chat to the landlord, make the usual enquiries and realise there is no PA [the promoter has taken the acoustic tag somewhat literally]. When he finally shows it’s all apologies. Our sound check is understandably made simple, luckily the venue is newly decorated in wood panels and flooring so the sound is audible at least, though there are no punters as yet. We have to laugh. We do the gig in two halves as the patron count increases and we thoroughly enjoy it. Intimacy is the key, it’s a bit like playing one of Bill’s soup gigs in a huge kitchen; it goes off pretty well. We meet up with Paul, Mark and Richard and have our own little party in the corner talking about football and New Order. Then the promoter disappears but despite such surrealist overtones we have risen to the occasion and are happy with our lot; this gig so much more satisfying than the previous, happy days. VPx

Star and Gartered

Craig and I are quaffing real ale in the smallest pub in Manchester, tompaulin are still sound-checking, the rain is spluttering and the winter ever beckoning, still I like the winter, I’m not complaining. Manchester will never be home to me as long as I keep getting lost, which I seem to do often, much to the amusement of the local boy. We are both smoking again for no good reason. I’ve not played the Star & Garter for sometime and it’s not changed a bit which is no bad thing. It’s probably best known for Smile, an indie disco starring Wayne Hemmingway look alike Andy Woods. Oh yeah, that and the legendary Smiths nights. First up tompaulin play poetically, prophetically even, as an acoustic duo as Stacy gently heckles from the back of the room. Hearing The Boy Hairdresser once again takes me back to their first album which I co-produced in Liverpool with Rob Ferrier. What a beautiful haunting song it is, the album version, for what it’s worth, has real seagulls in the distance…a real hippy dippy touch, microphone on the roof, proper Merseyside reverb. Jamie reminds me just how long ago all that was. The flight of time and suchlike. Our gig was much of a much-ness. Not a lot to say other than we were not happy with it. We didn’t really fire up like we should have. Remarkably I sold some CDs, all to students [who really should know better]. Sometimes you don’t deserve it and this was one such night. The next gig will be the best gig I’ve ever done; goes without saying, VPx

Gloss

Steve O’Donahue’s support set was just perfect, lovingly murderous songs about real stuff and with Bob Dylan’s jacket and John Thompson’s comedic persona I can’t believe he’s not drawn a sell out crowd here in Globesville Glossop Central. We certainly haven’t, I reckon there are only 40 people tops. We get curry and chips from over the road and return to the gig which is decidedly quiet and despite the bodily limitations enjoy what is only our second duo gig together. And we’re standing up for it to keep warm having sound-checked on a couple of woebegone plastic chairs. Ben Cooke has also come along for the ride and it’s good to catch up with him after what seems like forever. He’s back at the BBC which is nice. We played here with the band earlier this year and that was pretty quiet too. You never can tell laments Pete the owner who promises a bigger crowd next time around. Despite this and that we have a very fine time and I manage to drink four pints of bitter without being unduly affected which is a record of sorts. We play ye olde Star and Garter here in Manchester next week and have several duo gigs coming off throughout October so do come on down if we are close enough for jazz., best wishes, VPx