When I was a child into early teens, Saturday (and Sunday to a lesser extent) was a day for randomly doing stuff with your friends. I lived in a seaside resort during this era so hanging out on the beach, going to play pool in the arcades, or just wandering around trying to attract members of the opposite sex were high on our priorities. We played a lot of pool.
What was good about it looking back through my rose-tinted glasses was the totally unplanned nature of it, nothing was ever set in stone and leaving school on Friday afternoon the goodbyes were of the 'I might see you tomorrow' nature. In the days before social media and mobile phones the most effective method of communication was to knock on someone's door and ask if they were coming out, (it meant something different then) and if they said yes you just walked towards the noise of town and hoped for the best until it was dinner time and you went home.
These days it is a little bit easier to organise meetings thanks to social media and mobile phones, which is what he did today. There was a plan of sorts, more of a chalk outline really, we were going to invade places in Hockley and make a promotional video for The Sunday Alternative stage at this year's Hockley Hustle and we were going to meet at ten o'clock in the morning - that was the sum total of our plan, the rest was going to unravel into something brilliant or something awful.
Thankfully it was brilliant. Meeting up at Wired coffee shop and having an early morning cuppa with some of my musical friends, Gerry and Ant representing City of Kites, Alec Bowman from Wild Man of Europe (with Rosey and the kids too making it a family day out of sorts), Paul Wentworth from The Amber Herd, Misk Hills from DH Lawrence and the Vaudeville Skiffle Show and Cibele. The idea was to simply go into a place, be it a cafe, shop, wherever, and ask if one of our number could sing a song while I filmed. There was to be no amplification just acoustic guitars and the only sound recording was going to be from the camera itself so the idea was cheap, quick, DIY and entirely dependent on goodwill.
Wired allowed us to set up in the basement as it was a little too busy in the street level cafe. I hate talking while there's a musician playing so I would really get agitated with a coffee steamer whistling away, and downstairs was nice and quiet. There will be a cameo in the video from a member of staff wandering through for some bread from a store cupboard. We kicked off with a song from Misk Hills Mountain Rambler who is opening the stage at Hockley Hustle, before standing in the rain while we decided where to go next. Paul played at MySight charity shop on a raised area of the shop acting as a stage, and Gerry and Ant played a song in Element who very kindly moved a display stand of skateboards and turned the background music down.
Something I wasn't expecting is the fact that everybody we encountered was friendly and helpful and didn't in any way make us feel like we were doing something stupid. While looking for our next venue we happened to spot Amy the owner of Screen 22 (the smallest cinema in Nottingham) leaving ready to go for lunch but was persuaded to open up to let us play a song. She even turned everything on and projected the Hockley Hustle artwork for our stage onto the cinema screen while Alec played. Staying with cinemas, we were given a private room in Broadway to let Cibele sing. For this reason I have officially forgiven them for stealing my idea for Bad Film Club.
More enjoyable than the work (if it can be called work) was the opportunity to hang out with friends on a Saturday afternoon as I normally only see people at gigs. We had lunch at Edins and Gerry, Cibele and I went to The Angel to play pool. It was a brilliant day and we all went our separate ways in the late afternoon. I wish we could do this every Saturday.
The Sunday Alternative #55 is available from here.
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September housekeeping
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