Festivaled!
So yesterday I did the Hitchin "Rhythms of the World" festival. My first ever laminate, first special wristband, first parking permit! This is the second year the ROTW festival has been at it's new home of The Priory grounds, and I have to say, it's a vast improvement on the old "Take over the whole town and hope for the best" approach. Whilst the old format had it's charms; it was enormous, each area had it's own little atmosphere, there was more of a carnival, anything goes atmosphere, this set up works much better. For a start, it just feels more like a festival. Secondly, because it's all in one place, it's much easier to keep track of what's on where. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it's just easier to run like this. OK, so it used to be free, but £7 is reasonable by any standards. It cut down on the groups of feral types carrying cases of lager just circling around the town getting leary, and it meant that the marshals and the cops could just stick to the edges and keep a watchful eye, making for a much more relaxed atmosphere. In fact, Chris Ripple, the compere and poet responsible for the Arcadeelctric stage where I was appearing, wryly reffered to the whole thing as an "all inclusive village fete". Indeed.
Anyway, I was on at the rock and roll time of 4.15, and I spoke at the people for some 20 minutes. When I stopped speaking they clapped, if I told them I was definately at the end of a poem. Like, I had to say "thank you for listening to my poem about horrible sandwiches" and they would clap, but if I didn't they wouldn't. As this was quite a different set-to what I'm used to, I was a little unsure as to how I was going down. I thought "I'm going down badly". Actually, I didn't. I had some people come up to me and tell me that they really liked it, and a young man called Vinnie had sat with his mum and chuckled away, apparently. I was even asked if I was published.
Being that there were children in the audience, not to mention middle-aged people, I had to self-edit as I went along. This is quite tricky when the poem's main rhyming scheme is hinged on a word you can't say but somehow I made it work.
After I had performed I watched Blyth Power. They played folk rock and their songs were about the sorts of things I've forgotten about since I did history at school. There were a lot of punks there in Blyth Power T-shirts. They had big mohecan hair cuts and piercings in odd places. They were very nice though.
My heart warmed watching a little girl of aout 7 dancing un-selfconciously with her balloons next to 50-year-old po-going punks.
It was good.
Bitchin' In Hitchin!
Every year the lovely little town of Hitchin put on Rhythms of the World, or ROTW, which is easier to type, but harder to say without sounding like a broken lawnmower. It's a two day festival featuring loads of music and food. It's a brilliant day out for the whole family, so quite why theyve put me on is anyones guess. But put me on they have, on Sunday 5th July. I will be on stage at precisely Some Point In The Afternoon, and I will read the usual rubbish at a bunch of confused people. So it will be like any other gig but in a field. You should come though. You can get hold of tickets at very reasonable price of £7, which is damn good value for money. Go here to find out all about it.
The BBC are still funny...
Glad to see the BBC aren't afraid to be funny buggers, even after Sachsgate and Clarkson-erm.. non apology-gate? Lorrygate? Whatever..
The other night, and now enshrined on the mighty podium of THE iPLAYER (worship, you scum), was a very channel 5 offering, subtly entitled "How To Survive A Disaster". You should go and watch it now. Don't be fooled though, this is hard hitting stuff, telling it exactly like it is. Well, sort of. Let me hit you with a "Good News/Bad News" type thing. I'm going to invert it for dramatic effect though, so you get the sugar after the pill.
The bad news is that unless you can stop yourself from going into shock when confronted with a completely unpredictable calamity in the course of an otherwise ordinary day, thereby overriding your mind and body's decision to either shut down and freeze or to deliver a burst of vital adrenaline quick smart thus providing you with the faculties you will need to get out of whatever shitcake you are in, you..ahem..can't really survive a disaster. Sorry.
The good news is they showed some really cool footage of plane crashes. And some superb reconstructed footage of all your favourite disasters, and some you'd forgotten about.
I'm too young to remember the Woolworths fire, but on May 8th 1979 there was a fire at a Woolworths store. In Manchester. Some people died. Some of them may have been women and/or children, so I've decided to be still upset, even though I didn't know about it. The BBC naturally wanted me to be upset, so when they featured the fire on the How To Survive a Disaster programme, they played some very moving music behind it. Not depressing music, just thoughtful, slow, bitter-sweet music. You can see what I mean by going to 6.40 by using the beautiful creation that is THE iPLAYER (on your knees, worms). Lovely isn't it? It really is a nice piece of music. It's called "Days Like This Keep Me Warm" by The Polyphonic Spree. Really. "Days Like This Keep Me Warm".
SOMEBODY MUST HAVE NOTICED THAT?!?!?!? SURELY?!?!
At some point in the production of this very worthy and timely piece of documentary making, someone must have said "Have you seen what this piece of music is called? We can't do that!! Surely with all the furore surrounding our mighty corporation at the moment, perhaps using this particular piece of music may be a little inappropriate?"
Apparently not, and you know what, bless ‘em for that. Take the mischief out of the Beeb and what have you got? ITV, that's what.
MALTINGS WOO WOO!
I'm chuffed to be able to announce that I'm going to be at the MALTINGS ARTS THEATRE on feb 25th! It will be a Poetry Link night, who take a bunch of wordy folk around the country doing words at people. Turns out they do a night right here in St Albans, at the brilliant Maltings Arts Centre, which I was oblivious to, but turns out I've done some of the same venues that POETRY LINK do. So, it would be great to see you down there! Full details off me events page, innitt...
Got Vids Now!
So, all these were from Flokadot at The Green Note on 04/02/09, and loads of people had bothered to skid out to camden to see some music, so it was very nice of them to watch me get up, shout at them, read some poems and throw banjo noises about. Actually, they clapped and laughed a lot, and I had a great time. I LOVE FOLKADOT!! the hosts, Johny and Rhada are fantastic. Not only do they put on a brilliant night, make all the acts feel at home, and give excellent sound every time, but they are also fantastic, lovely people. Can you tell I like this night?
Feb to the Ruary
So, here comes February, then. It's going to be a good one, with some great gigs lined up. On the 4th, I'm back at Folkadot, my favourite night! I loved the Green Note as soon as I saw it; small, cozy, very friendly, great beer, brilliant veggie tapas and a nice little stage. The guys who run Folkadot are even nicer, making me feel welcome and making sure I had everything I needed, and they ran a tight but calm ship. There's nothing more annoying than performing somewhere when the organisers are icapable of organising.
I'm looking forward to going back, and this time I will be taking my banjo!
Then, on the 10th, I'm back at the Green Note, but this time for the Utter! valentines special, which is celebrating Silvia Plath's Deathday. Obviously. The superb RT Jones will be leading the proceedings, and it promises to be a fun night. For my money, Utter! is one of the best spoken word events. It's funnier, for a start, and much better run than most. They also do a host of other writing events, which, obviously, I can't ever afford to attend because I'm poor and stuck in Hatefordshire...
Then, on the 24th I'm back to the Glass Onion in Peterbourgh, for their Speakeasy night. I was at their Halloween special last year, and it was the best I've EVER been to! These guys packed out their independantly-run arts/social venue to capacity, and rocked the night away with spoken word, insanely noisy bands, a burlesque act and tunes, all for a couple of quid....It was great! Really looking forward to going back there!!
I have something much more local tbc at the very end of the month, which I hope you will be able to come to if it goes ahead...more news on that asap.
Meanwhile, check out the new piccies...
Still no sign of the vinnie action figures. Sorry Harry.
Mattell aren't answering my calls, Fisher Price have started leaving frankly abusive messages on my phone and there is no sweatshop left that hasn't stopped answering my e-mails, so , for now, at least, the Vinnie GIbbons Action Fighure dream is just that- another bitter, tattered dream in a field of them.
Maybe it was my marketting strategy that I fell down on. Tomorrow I will show you the designs and blurb.
Right now I have to go and soak the tears up with those pledge wipes in a bag. You get well squiffy off them. Wooo!
Bus Bastard
I got a response today re. the snotty letter I wrote regarding the bus driver who told me to "come back to earth" after he fucked up my fare. Well, he came down to earth with a bang on his smug batty today, having had a formal interview and a note in his personal file. Angry Letter-writing Monkey -1 Sarcy Bus Driving Idiot- 0.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!
If anyone wants any snotty letters written for minor foibles, please don't hesitate to ask me to have a go. I have more than enough bile to go round and not enough irritations of my own to attend to, so I have a surplus, and it make me itchy.
Myth Hunter
The new tax adverts featuring Moira Stewart has reminded me of my mum's claim that Ms Stewart is a lesbian. Not only that but that her lady-toy is none other than Pam St Clements, AKA Pat Butcher from eastenders. I've spent a little while trying to ascertain the truth of this this afternoon, but it seems that both ladies are notoriously tight-lipped on the subject of their personal life. So, i've been reduced to trawling gossip forums as there seems to be no reliable source on this, and I'm sort of regretting that I have, because in my efforts to clear up one way or another one brainworm, i've inadvertntley hatched a few more. Witness this from Moopy.org (no, me niether) on their Wogan site.
Now, ordinarily this sort of filth-buffet would get my truth-finding gene firing off stern commands to my keyboard-singeing, google-grilling little fingers to discover what's what, but frankly, I don't think I can bear to know. Still, truth is truth, and we have a responsibility to share it, so if you think you have the stomach, off you go and fact find for me. I'll stick to writing narky letters.
HELLO! 09/10/08
Just got word that there are some live recordings of me at Look Both Ways the other week. Bless 'em the audience seem a bit laid back, but it's me in audio format, so it's obviously well good.To hear the streams, go HERE.
In other news, I have declared all-out war on the cheeky bus driver who hacked me off this morning, and have written some stern words to the company involved. Unless they give me some free stuff, I will make a poem out of the reply, which will be like a companion piece to JOWLY NORMAN, my other bus driver poem, and both will be unveiled here soon.
If anyone wants to make me some "CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE JUST MADE IT INTO A VINNIE GIBBONS POEM!" items, like cards or laminates or Vinnie action figures or anything, mail me.
If a bus driver hacks you off, don't just take it! Sit down and write the most middle-class letter you can physically manage. If you need a hand, you know where I am...