A friend
of mine recently sent me an email asking me if I would like to write an article for
a prestigious blues magazine in America. I agreed and, on advice, dutifully wrote
a piece about growing up in Newcastle Upon Tyne and how The Blues influenced
me. The response back was fairly immediate:
"The Editor loved the Article David and will print it ... but not this
month."
"Uhuh"
"You've now got six hours before deadline to write explicitly about The Blues
Scene in London"
"Coo, lumey, blimey, er, oh um - okay" I thought.
So, Da Dum: Here it is: "Searching for The Real Blues Scene in London."
Only one
small problem ... there isn't one. Nothing, not an electronic sausage, not even some
crusted Mustard to put on it. I had thought, mistakenly as it turned out, it would
be a snap ... visit the store, buy a few "What's On" type magazines, reach
out for a copy of "Bluff your way in Journalism" and hot-dog with onions,
off you go to the computer to type. Alas "Time Out", London's biggest events
magazine, has not one entry with the word "Blues" in it, not anywhere in
it's 194 pages this week. It's got folk, reggae, jazz, dance, rock, samba, funk,
soul, well loved Tibetan goat herding themes, but THE BLUES ?... Nada. Kind of begs
the question "Why?" or rather "Why not?" So, with a nervous
glance at my clock, 11.10am, five hours to go to the Editor's deadline and a quick
phone call to cancel lunch, off I went in search of answers. There is a Tibetan Buddhist
saying about never asking "Why?". I don't know why (I didn't like to ask
after reading it), but I was beginning to think it would be the same deal vis-a-vis
"Why Not?"
Not being
entirely without the resources to search for the all- elusive, groovy, London, Blues
Scene, I did what every intrepid investigative journalist does ... I switched on
my modem and visited the weird wired web. Ahh... The hum of life on the super highway,
metaphor, slash dot, simile, blah de blah, flim flam, waiting to load, blah blah,
talk amongst yourselves, hit the Search Engines ... I type "The Blues + Uk,"
'That should generate about a billion entries,' I figure.
Alta
Vista comes up blank, so does Excite, Lycos too, Webcrawler:
"Unable to find a match" ... Can't be? Why?... Don't ask. I mean even the
Yeti generates 200,000 sightings on the net. How come nobody at www.co.uk ever heard
of The Blues? Time zipping along. Fear now setting up house in the form of
a fresh, but interestingly persisting, underarm presence. Oh dear. I try again: I
type "The Blues Scene London" hitting Enter ... Yes! Happiness!!
A result!!! "The Blues Scene London" Bliss, an entire Website dedicated
to the exact subject. I'm saved - Hoorah - lists of Clubs, cool Artists, in fact
everything a good Bluffer could possibly steal is here. There's only one small hickup
... it's for London, Alberta, Canada. Shoot, I didn't even know there was a London
in Canada.
12.20am,
less than four hours to go. The thought of pretending I thought they actually wanted
me to write about London Canada, flickers hesitantly for a second, but even a veteran
bluffer like me has to concede this wishful fantasy has no legs, no wings. It's a
veritable Dodo. It occurs to me at this point that the Blues is all about asking
why? ... or more precisely "Why Me?" 'Hmm. Probably explains why there
aren't any well known Tibetan Blues players,' I muse.
Seventeen
phone calls to friends, now former friends (plus several bleeding ears) later, I
think I might have some theories and some answers, but that the Blues has
reached whole new levels of invisibility here in the UK in 1998 is apparently the
deal and we may as well be honest about that.
Scoop: The Blues has been marginalised.
Aha! By gum,
bet you didn't know that? Yeah, not much. Despite what the "literary giants"
of our age like Noel "after all, you are my wonderwall" Gallagher, seem
to want us to believe, with their Hey Jude rewrites and Yellow Submarine videos,
believe me, it is not the swinging-sixties over here - the Blues, regrettably, has
not been seriously re-discovered since 1966. Why? Don't ask. That said however, that
people are still playing, and listening, to the Blurs, [Two hours to deadline. The
Blurs? Who they? Prime Minister en famile???] I mean the blues, can be
in no doubt.
So, this
is what I now know: Major International (i.e. American) Blues Artists visiting England
will tend to play at jazz venues. Okay scratch "will tend to" ... They
will play at jazz venues, just as surely as they will arrive in airplanes, because
there simply isn't one prestigious, blues venue here. Astonishing but true. To me
jazz is jazz and blues is blues, but not so apparently here in England
anymore. If the blues gets played on radio, guess where the first station
to find it is? Right Jazz fm ... Go figure. I'm also unreliably informed that
there are a number of venues "prepared to stage blues" acts (the London
Agent I'm speaking with uses the word "blues" like a Doctor describing
the ebola virus); however, if you really want to catch it, you might find it at the
Blues Bistro and Bar in Soho, which is basically a bistro with a jazz band (!), Ain't
Nothin' But The Blues Bar, 20 Kingly St, W1, allegedly the best "real"
blues bar in London, on a typical night would offer food, but also put on acoustic
blues acts with maybe a lean towards delta blues. Cheap Charlies Richmond St. London
is alleged to exist, The Other Side, York St. London, EOA 1205 Dundas St. London,
also. Old Chicago, 153 Carling St. London, Scandals, 341-Wharncliffe Rd. S. London,
100 Club, 100 Oxford Street, W1 0171 636 0933, a Rock Venue which will, on occasion,
put on a blues act, Station Tavern, 41 Bramley Rd, 11 Russell Gardens W14 is an R&B
club essentially. Blues Basement at Big Easy Restaurant, Soho, Rock and Folk Venue,
the Half Moon, in Putney, 93 Lower Richmond Rd, SW15, 0181 780 9383, once allegedly
had a blues jam, sometime between the two Great Wars and last, but not least, the
Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, Camden Town, NW1 0171 916 6000, being a Jazz venue of course
(you're with me right?), it regularly features blues luminaries and, ahem, under-employed
singer-songwriter types, who do a spot of freelance journalism, too I hear... So
hey ho there you go. You now know everything I know.
3pm, still
a little time to spare. How to mop all this crud up, so that it resembles the
real article, rather than mad diary of an aromatic fool ? I do what all
us professional freelancers do at such times. No, I don't mean I console myself with
the thought that people only buy magazines to read the adverts anyway, I do something
much more constructive: I turn to Luggage, the Joy Bringer, my dog and ask him what
he would do if he were in my predicament? The answer is emotional and direct: "Don't
ask me why Dad, I wouldn't bother Mate, bow wow. I'd chew on this here bone instead.
That's what us labradors are really good at doing Man. Here, taste this bit,
it's fantastic." So there it is from the dog's own mouth and if you think it's
a bit of a shaggy dog's tail, don't ask "why?" unless of course you want
to sing the blues. Well, I'm off to do a spot of strimming, erm, I mean strumming
... 'Wonder how my organic compost is doing?...'
...' Omm'.
