Matthew Herbert: newsical genius

Every so often something happens which makes me pinch myself, and wonder how the hell I got to where I am today. Last night was one of those occasions, as I went to one of the best musical performances I've ever seen as a result of my job. 

A couple of months ago composer Matthew Herbert approached the Guardian as he wanted to create a concert inspired by a single copy of the Guardian. We agreed....as we're kinda cool like that....and the results were performed last night at the Royal Festival Hall by the London Sinfonietta as part of the London Jazz Festival.

My my, it was an absolute hoot. As the audience arrived to take their seats, we were all handed copies of the Guardian from Saturday 25 September 2010, which was the edition he had used to draw inspiration from. As the performance got underway with a piece based around the sounds of the Guardian printing presses, we were told which sections of the paper had influenced which compositions. 

What lay at every audience member's feet at the end of the night

When I initially heard about the project I had presumed that he would be using some of the big news stories to provoke his pieces, but instead he tended to focus on little random stories in the various sections, which made it even more quirky.

One piece was prompted by a small, wry article in the business section about a forthcoming auction for a Lehman Brothers sign. Herbert had bid for the item online hoping that the Sinfonietta's percussionest would then be able to 'play' the sign as part of the performance, but this hope was dashed when it sold for a whopping £23,000! Instead, a piece of music was created around the sound of the auction itself which Herbert had recorded, with the audience being instructed by the conductor to rub two credit cards together at certain points. A fantastic composition critiquing money and consumerism was the result.

Another section of the concert was based around the paper's various articles and features about food. There was even a chef on the stage cooking the recipes which had appeared in the Weekend mag that day, with the smells wafting across the audience throughout the entire evening. As a foley artist created the sounds of mould growing (to match a video being shown which had been mentioned in the paper, of-course), we were told to make paper aeroplanes out of the recipe pages to represent food airmiles. The sight of hundreds of paper aeroplanes whizzing around the RFH was magical.

The most poignant piece was prompted by a poem which had been printed in the Review section about a dying mother. Herbert set the poem to music, which was sung by Eska. It was simply beautiful.

Less beautiful, but more fun, was a composition based solely on footage from a football match that took place that day - Oxford United v Crewe Alexandra to be precise. Herbert cleverly selected a section in the match which contained very little football and lots of schoolboy altercations, with the orchestra providing the sound effects for every shove, whistle and bounce of the ball.

Wow, I could go on and on about this but I'm aware I've already written too much. Other highlights included a cover version of a Status Quo song, volunteers rhythmically building a house on stage with bricks to reflect the property articles (during which the audience jangled their house keys) and a pianist whose birthday was mentioned in the paper that day playing the intro to one of the songs. We were also encouraged to try and complete the cryptic crossword during the course of the evening, with the first to do so winning a bottle of wine.

However, I think my favourite piece in terms of the actual music was one based around a recording of an interview between Ed Pilkington and Jonathan Frantzen (the resulting feature appeared in the paper on the 25 September). Herbert spliced and remixed their conversation live on stage while the orchestra 'played' copies of Frantzen's latest book, which he was promoting in the interview. It sounded bloody awesome and deliciously trippy.

The climax of the concert was a mass audience participation piece, where each section of the audience had to use their copy of the Guardian to make various sounds, through rolling it up and tapping, ripping the pages or even blowing through it. Very enjoyable, though it meant that the venue looked like absolute carnage afterwards, with torn up Guardians cluttering every aisle. 

I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed the entire concert - it was performed with such humour and intelligence, even including when the performers bowed at the very end to reveal Rupert Murdoch's face adorning the top of everyone's heads. But I'll let you all make your own minds up about what Herbert was trying to imply with this...

Snap happy

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted about the fact that I was on the lookout for a new camera, and asked if anyone had any advice. I was overwhelmed by the response, and as a direct result I am now the proud owner of a dinky Canon Ixus 100 IS. I'm going on holiday to the USA on Saturday and this tiny piece of kit will be great to take around with me on my travels.

However, I also got a lot of recommendations for what could only be described as more 'serious' cameras, with Tom from Computeractive and Rich from Best Buy UK giving me some handy tips, so when I get back to the UK I reckon I'll be tempted to invest in a more substantial camera.

Rich from Best Buy UK also provided me with the perfect opportunity to test out my new camera by offering me tickets to an exclusive Ellie Goulding gig at the indigO2 this week. Now I'm so out of touch with 'modern' music that I'd never heard any of her tracks before, but she was a great performer and it was a fun evening. I'm by no means a natural photographer, but here are some of the shots I snapped at the gig...

A Dodgy moment

The summer of 1996 was a good one. At the height of my interest in football, England hosted the European Championships, and the country was alive with the vibe of Cool Britannia. I seem to remember it was a particularly sunny summer and, despite a random ankle injury I had to hobble around with (I liked to compare my injury with that sustained by Jamie Redknapp in Euro 96) it was one of the happiest summers of my youth.

It was also quite a notable year for me in terms of my musical tastes, as this was the summer that I abandoned boyband pop in favour of indie rock, most notably in the form of Ash and Dodgy. Indeed, you could even argue that Dodgy's gloriously-titled 1996 album 'Free Peace Sweet' was what sparked my interest in puns.

In the decade and a half since that summer I've been to tons of Ash gigs. But I've only ever seen Dodgy play once, at Shepherd's Bush Empire a couple of years ago, and I was gutted that I had to miss them play the Avalon stage at last year's Glastonbury. 

So imagine my joy a few weeks ago when a lovely little e-mail landed in my inbox from the rather awesome website Songkick, telling me that Dodgy were playing at my LOCAL PUB at the end of the month! This nifty site allows you to 'track' bands you're interested in and alert you when they announce gigs, no matter how big or small. I don't know too much about how Songkick works - Illandancient will be able to tell you more - but I think it's updated by the fans and bands themselves, so you get to hear about gigs that wouldn't necessarily be flagged up on the bigger music websites.

I promptly purchased tickets, and last night I wandered down the road to relive the soundtrack to that magical summer. It turned out to be a more meaningful evening than I had envisaged. We arrived at about 8.30pm and the venue - Dirty South - was pretty buzzing. There were eight bands performing, and we had no idea what time Dodgy (or - more accurately - Nigel Clark and Andy Miller) would be playing. 

My friend and I were quite happy chatting and drinking the night away, but at 11pm I was starting to get a bit concerned that we'd somehow managed to miss Dodgy's set, and perhaps they'd already performed without playing any of their well-known hits. At 11.30pm we wandered over to the stage area and watched the VERY cool band Little Imp. They had a pretty big following and played a great rocky set, and I'd definitely like to see them again. Dodgy were up next. Weirdly the crowd thinned, and at one stage I was seriously concerned that it would just be the two of us watching them, but as they started playing 'In a Room' the area got a busier again.

The set was great - they played lots of old stuff, but with the absence of a drummer their songs took on a more melancholy tone. As they played the opening chords of one of my favourite Dodgy tracks - 'If You're Thinking Of Me' - and I looked around the room at the audience of 40 or so fans (all grinning ear-to-ear), it struck me that the summer of 1996 really was a lifetime ago. 

It was a strange moment for me - and I'm sure all the wine helped - but I suddenly realised that my youth is well and truly over, and for a split second I felt uncharacteristically overwhelmed. I know that may sound strange coming from a 28-year-old, as factually speaking my youth has probably been officially over for the best part of a decade, but so much has changed. There's now a complete lack of political optimism which - even as a 14-year-old - I was aware of in the run up to the 1997 election. Summers never seem so sunny anymore. And now Nigel and Andy from Dodgy are now just two chaps with guitars who are still happy to play a set in Lewisham at 1am (which became 2am what with the clocks going forward) on a Saturday night. And although I'm very glad they did, it did made me sad that it isn't 1996 anymore.

LOVE this photo of my bandmates

via nickdillonphotography.com

Omar on the left and Kev on the right. Lovely lads.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Me drumming

via nickdillonphotography.com

Here are some awesome pictures from our most recent gig, taken by genius photographer Nick Dillon.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Comedy connections for Witness To The Beard

It was gig number four for Witness To The Beard last night, and my throat is certainly paying the price for it today. I only sang one brief ditty, but my vocal chords were already feeling vulnerable after a week of coughing, and - if it's possible for throats to have mood swings - it's now sulking in a big, croaky way. Ah well.

We returned to The Comedy Pub for the gig, which is where we played live for the first time a few months ago. It's a nice little venue and the sound quality is pretty decent. We were playing alongside a really eclectic mix of artists too. The first act were a funky group called Scarletts Roses, whose songs were foot-tappingly and smile-inducingly catchy, with some quirky rap thrown in for good measure. I really liked their song 'My Heart Belongs to Judy', and I'm very jealous of the girl singer's voice, which is as melodic and floaty as mine isn't.

Second up were The Technicolour. Their drummer, Alex, used to be in our band (before we were reincarnated as WTTB) and we have the same drum teacher (the awesome Darren Malley). It was nice to catch up with Alex and see him in action as a drummer, since he used to play bass / guitar in our band. A very good drummer he is too.

Then we took to the stage for our 30-minute set. I think it was the best we'd played out of the four gigs, although there were a few fluffs, but nowt major. We also played a couple of new songs for the first time, which is always a bit nervewracking.

After us, one chap and his guitar - Chris MacArthur - wowed the crowd with his amazing guitar skills and voice. Stoned Phoney were the last to play. Unbelievably this was their first ever gig as a band, and they really were brilliant. They described themselves as grunge / blues when we were chatting before the gig, and I guess this sums them up pretty well. The ferocity of the drummer's beats was demonstrated when a huge shard of drumstick flew across the stage during a particularly frenetic flourish. I wish I could flourish like that, but as Darren is constantly reassuring me, keeping a steady beat is more important than doing fancy fills and whatnot. Yeah I know, but it's just not as cool! I also wish I could link to them so you can have a listen / look for yourself, but they have no internet presence whatsoever.

All in all it was a fun night, and we donated all £22.50 of our takings to Movember. When I told someone last night we were giving the money to charity, they jokingly responded "what, a beard charity or something?!" to which I accurately responded "Yes".

The next Witness To The Beard gig is on Friday 11 December at The Cavendish Arms in Stockwell. I'm hugely excited about this one, as we were invited to play by all-round funny man H Anthony Hildebrand, who runs the An Event of Some Kind night at the pub every couple of months. The evening is a mixture of comedy and music, and if I wasn't playing at it, I'd go along anyway. Headlining the night is Tom Basden, who was a Never Mind The Buzzcocks guest a couple of weeks ago. We've got two mini sets throughout the evening, which will be a refreshing change, and if all that isn't enough to tempt you to come along, there's a drawing competition in the interval, and free snacks from the bar! Anyway, enough plugging...

Next creative venture: write a song

2009 appears to be the year of 'doing new things' for me. So far this year I've played my first ever live gigs with my band, been to Glastonbury for the first time, went on my first business trips and I've recently written my first ever short story (which I might even share with the world one day). I have a week off next week, and I've decided that my aim for the week (as well as catching up with my family in Bristol, watching lots of TV, reading a stack of books and having a bit of time away from t'internet and its inevitable trappings) is going to be to steal temporarily borrow one of my brother's guitars and pen a song.
You never know, if it ends up being even close to ok, I might even perform it at an upcoming Witness To The Beard gig. So far I have two chords and the vague whisper of a melody, but I already know that the lyrics are going to be the trickiest part. Do I make them all deep and meaningful, or should my tongue remain firmly in my cheek? Should it be dripping with puns and irony, or should I - for once - strip away my defensive layers of self-deprecating humour and bare my soul (pass the bucket)?
I must admit, it would be nice to add my own song to WTTB's growing collection of original material. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than content to drum along to the songs the two lads come up with, since rhythm comes marginally more naturally to me and they're both great songwriters, but I've always enjoyed a challenge. Time to get out of my drum-fort zone methinks...

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Unleashing the Beard

I'm not usually the type of person who makes New Year's resolutions, but at the start of 2009 I had the urge to tick off one of my life's ambitions at some point over the next 12 months. I can now happily declare that I have achieved that aim - to play a live gig.

I've been drumming for a couple of years, just as a random hobby really. I've written before about how this may seem an odd choice of instrument for someone who is usually pretty clumsy and uncoordinated, but it somehow seems to work! My band - Witness To The Beard* - has been together for just under a year, and although we try and get together to practice once a week, work commitments have meant that our gatherings are more infrequent than we would prefer. So the prospect of actually getting up on stage and playing our songs (well, to be fair, their songs, as I just drum along) was pretty terrifying. But I reckon sometimes you have to challenge yourself and put yourself in unfamiliar situations simply for the experience.

I'm thrilled to report that our first gig was an amazing experience. Yeah, our performance was by no means perfect, but we got up there, played a set of mostly our own material, and even got paid for the privilege! We hadn't realised when we signed up to play a 30-minute slot at the Comedy Pub near Leicester Square that we'd get a quid for everyone who turned up to see us, so we were thrilled to get over a tenner each.

The 30+ people who were there to specifically watch up absolutely blew me away with their support and enthusiasm on the night. The chants of "Witness!Witness!Witness!Witness!" were inspired, and exactly the type of light-hearted vibe that we all thrive under. On this occasion I personally decided not to tell too many people about our debut performance, just in case it all went horribly wrong. But since it went pretty well, expect to see much more shameless self-promotion from now on! It would be great to see lots of familiar faces at one of our future performances, and I'd be really interested to get your feedback on our beardy antics!

*My dad grew a beard. Someone didn't believe me. Someone else said: "It's true. I was witness to the beard." Simple as. The beard is still in existence today, and we proudly represent those facial follicles through the medium of rock.

Special Ks

Lots of fun in Cardiff last night. It felt a tad strange to be back there after a couple of years since my last visit, but it didn't let me down.

As a student many moons ago, I used to frequent an Indian restaurant called Kismet on City Road. Whenever I return to the city I make an effort to pay Kismet a visit, because the value is unbeatable and the food is yummy. A mere fiver for a starter (Kebab-E-Kismet is awesome), curry, rice AND side dish. Booze is pretty cheap too - £11.95 for a bottle of house plonk, but with their permanent BOGOF wine deal, you get two bottles for the same price. Excellent stuff, and precisely what we needed before heading to the CIA to watch The Killers.

What can I say, the gig was faultless. Check out some footage that I managed to film here. At 2mins55secs I very nearly drop the camera, hence my girly shriek. There was tickertape, pyrotechnics, and a fab mass-singalong to Bohemian Rhapsody just before they came onstage. I also managed to avoid the ridiculously long queues for drinks by sneaking upstairs and discovering a secret bar.

Hmmm, I appear to have written more about Kismet than The Killers...

Kicking about town

Nice and cheap evening in London after work yesterday. It started off in the uber-trendy area of Hoxton, where I had been invited along to a swanky launch party for the new range of Kickers shoes. Yummy free cocktails were flowing, and I also got to see a cool Kickers-inspired stop-frame video (made by Lovebite) for a CSS remix of the Chromeo track 'Fancy Footwork'.

Next year they're launching a new shoe that you can colour in yourself, which is a pretty neat idea, although I never could stay inside the lines.

After having our fill of complimentary nibbles, we headed sarf to Brixton where we watched Biffy Clyro absolutely rock it up with an immaculate set, culminating in millions of sparkly ticker tape bits floating onto the crowd, and singer Simon Neil literally launching himself head first into the mosh pit for the crescendo of their closing song. Sod the drums - I now have a new career goal: rock violinist.

Totally ASHed

Ash know how to put on a show. Last night they did just that at the Roundhouse in Camden, playing their classic album '1977' in its entirety, plus loads more besides. This was pretty much my dream gig. 1977 is like my favourite album of all time, it having converted me from pop to punk rock in the summer of 1996.

Oh I remember that summer well. Spraining my ankle, going mental whilst watching Euro 96 (if only Gazza's leg had been one inch longer!) and rocking out to Ash and Dodgy CDs with my bro. I seem to recall lime green and orange were the vogue that year. I wore them together. Anyway, it really was a great gig, all the more so because I was at the front - woooo! Oh, and I love the way drummer Rick McMurray appears to be totally motionless when he plays, apart from his wrists. Legend!

I have some ace photos of the gig on my mobile but I can't seem to get them onto my laptop, grrr.

Clapping Common

Highlight of the Get Loaded in the Park festival on Clapham Common for me this bank holiday weekend was undoubtedly the unstoppable energy and amazing voice of Gossip (or is it 'The Gossip'?) singer Beth Ditto. There I was in the packed tent, seriously flagging after consuming vino and vodka (and a rather dodgy burger), when she suddenly bounds on to the stage clad in a pink glittery number and sporting an eye-catching ginger bob, and sets the stage on fire. The band's performance totally invigorated me for the rest of the evening, during which I somehow ended up dancing on a table in a bar in Balham. And I don't do dancing...

Giving blogging a bad name

Yes I know I haven't written this for a while. Sorry fans. Haha, have just got home after watching Bon Jovi tonight and am a tad tipsified. The gig / concert was amaaazing, and I must praise the Twickenham staff - everyone we spoke to there was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. *Tip* If you can't be arsed to queue for the cash machine, go into the rugby shop and buy a pencil for 50p on your card (or, if you're in a generous / drunk mood like me, an extra-special pink fluffy one for a tad more moolah) and get cashback - sooo much quicker. AND you get a pencil - woooo!