Cabaret Season

It’s dirty and it’s not pretty but I find myself swept up in the cash cow collective befitting of a humble jobsworthy muso, tomorrow I begin a series of festive cabaret gigs with friends [oh how could I refuse]. It’s a seasonal demand thing; that and the lure of hard cash. We have a wedding in Southampton, a 60th birthday in Derby…and, well, the itinerary is kind of irrelevant really still I know it can be fun amongst other things. And I don’t really do fun in the FUN sense too well so this kind of frees me up to play anything from Neil Diamond to Van Morrison. Oh how Vinny Peculiar hates that side of me…schizophrenically speaking you understand but any concerns regarding artistic compromise are frankly...wasted on me. get over it. I don’t play a lot of covers gigs. I usually leave that kind of thing to the experts. Tim is quite the expert and he’s written the Rules of Cabaret just to keep us all grounded, so he says, and here they are.


The Five Rules of Cabaret by Timothy Browne
1 If you don’t know it don’t play
2 I you don’t know the words sing OOOhs
3 Smile throughout…no sulking allowed
4 Look like you’re enjoying it and you will enjoy it…honest!
5 Don’t ever leave the stage having faked a brain haemorrhage and spend the next two hours in the bar feeling sorry for yourself [I think he’s getting at me with this one]

And then there’s The King of Cabaret, a song I wrote after a painfully memorable night of cover versioneering some years back. I still do it live every now and then. Why I am telling you all this?? I have no idea….meanwhile there’s more.

I spent the day sifting through odds and ends looking for additional tracks to include on the forthcoming Lazy Bohemians single release [available to download Jan 15th 07 details to follow] and after some debate [with Andy woods mostly] settled upon Ghost Camp [prelude] which was written for the Salford Lads Clubs production of The Ghost Camp. Recorded in Craig Gannon’s home studio it’s written from an eight year olds viewpoint about the excitement and anticipation of going off to camp in wartime. It features some splendid spindly guitar playing from Craig and our very own DIY string ensemble. It’s a theatrical little piece in need of the old school choir but somehow we never got round to using one. Shame…still it sounds pretty good, we’re pleased with it. The second track is called Get Well Soon which the band [featuring Markus the Mighty Lemon Dropper]on bass] recorded in Rochdale in August 2005. We did it live a couple of years back, it was listed for the Fall and Rise but never really fitted in so to speak. I’ve only just rediscovered it. I’d almost forgotten it ever existed to be honest. The surprise was so much nicer than the memory, which is often the case. And lastly… I went out for a few beers with some of my oldest friends this past week, that’s them in the pictures. They’re great. I’m great. We’re all great and I’m grateful too them all. So thanking you ladies and gentleman, you’ve been wonderful, go on, give yourselves a round of applause… this next ones for the bridesmaids…a little old classic by Van the Man name of Brown Eyed Girl…ARRRRGH. VP