.....parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme

...this is minnis playing his guitar with his band at the sage! yes the sage, newcastle's cultural music centre! it was great - we all deserve to play in such places! and minnis was as inventive and wonderful as ever. good to hear "caltrops" again. minnis has the ability to play a song that contains at least 14 ideas that could very well have been 14 individual songs but skilfully melts them into one 4 or 5 minute musical journey.......

the rest of the night drifted between mildly entertaining to down right ridiculos but was ended by the caffreys who sang beautiful harmonies with traces of the eagles and crosby, stills, nash and young.... 3 brothers and assortment of friends. they didn't have their drummer with them and both me and chris (miller.... for chris and lynne were with us) felt actually enhanced the beauty of what they did. we both bought both of their cds and were slightly dissapointed by how they sounded with the drums.... not that the drumming has anything wrong with it,we just got to know the songs without them, so, need to hear them again with them..... i think the lead singer has shades of james taylor about him.... very beautiful.

what else did we hear....
can't remember names..... but....

we got a singer/finger picker guitarist whose guitar playing was immense but whose singing was in tune but in a ludricous nouvelle club singer style that i oft hear at buskers/open mic nights these days... you know kinda trying too hard and ending up looking like a knob.....

we then got a female vocalist (with an ample chest that held mine and chris's attention.... sad i know but there it is!) and she had a great voice singing songs somewhere between pop and jazz. personally i would have kept her and the bass player and got a jazz drummer rather than a rock drummer and a jazz guitarist. her songs were good (if a little samey) and she had a cracking voice.

we then got the bryan adams tribute band... although they claimed they'd written all the songs themselves i'm sure if you trawled bryan's back catalogue you could find them all...... can't remember what they were called and to be honest they executed what they did very expertly but they were trying too hard (in a way the caffreys didn't need to do) and were about 30 years too late...... and to honest i sat there thinking if this is what people my age look like playing out dated trad (and not in a good way) music looking like dicks making rock star faces and pulling slashesque stances then i'm going to stop right now.....

but then the caffreys came on stage and sang their tunes which to be honest were trad but in an exceptionally good way.... beautifully crafted songs with none of the pretentious posturing of the previous band... just talented musicians who clearly loved what they were doing, had nothing to prove, and just wanted to entertain you... and were at least 10 to 15 years older than me.... age is not the factor here then, is it, it's how much of a cock you make of yourself when you're doing it.... (and sometimes making a cock of yourself is fine - bono for example!!)

slap me if i ever start making a cock of myself on stage..... bugger i've just felt miller slap me through the power of the internet!!

.....been in touch with webb for some up to the minute tips on all things decks 'n' dj's cos he's got himself a whole promoter/dj thing going on.....

you know it's incredible where the whole one way cafe crew have got themselves to.... sat next to si at the gig who me 'n' chris recognised instantly... so i said hi and he told me who he was and i said i was stephen... he looked perplexed as to why this goateed old fella was talking to him... so i said i used to run owc..... not a hint of recognition!!! i guess i was just the grumpy fella sat behind the mixing desk trying to get the bands to soundcheck on time!! lol!!
....but just think about it.... minnis playing the sage, comarty teaching drums and playing, pete been name checked with his band in the national music press (and winning the leeds bright young thing thing), johnny vipond teaching and playing, webb promoting and dj'ing.... what happened to the rest - mindslide been a great example - phippsy and the other fella who always just smiled from ear to ear and was a pleasure to watch perform.... i always remember the first time they played and he got up and sang some songs with them ....i remember his exuberant declaration "this is mint this" (or something as equally joyous!) brilliant.....

.....and remember "the big thing". we got talking about a owc reunion gig or even a second "big thing". three nights somewhere in durham - local festival type thing! we'll see... love the idea....

listening to "the lambretta twins" by the caffreys - you can hear it here