Also I’ve been getting out and about a bit more since I got a free bus pass courtesy of Notts County Council. Among other things there have been lots of free local festivals in the area like ‘Emerge’ at Shipley Park, and ‘Furthest from the Sea’ in Derby City Centre and it’s great to see local talent both young and old getting a proper chance to perform and do it for themselves. There’s so much X factor and Voice type shows around that seem to convince people that they are not good enough or that they can only write and perform within certain parameters, so it’s great to see people still shining through and doing their own thing. Last week I went to Sutton Lawn festival, and it was a lovely day and there was a great turn out but mainly to see a load of cover bands doing Jesse J and Coldplay tributes (Coolplay). I performed there several years ago with the Cajun Roosters but it siled it down with rain and we ended up playing to 4 men and a dog! Seems like the council have now abandoned any attempt at bringing culture and originality to the Suttonians but at least it brings the punters in which is I’m sure their thinking behind it. Talking of originality, I really enjoyed the Glastonbury footage on BBC i Player if only to witness 200 000 people opening their minds up to such a variety of weird and wonderful performing arts, I would have loved to have been there but the BBC did their best to convey the atmosphere of the event, though quite honestly I think there ought to be a part of the website that just focuses on all the fringe stuff. I would have probably spent most of my time watching that rather than the Stones and the Arctic Monkeys. Chic and Seasick Steve were great though, and I am a convert to Swedish voodoo rockers ‘Goat’ – awesome!
I’ve been having a bit of a breakthrough with my musical endeavours and I have decided to focus on recording and playing for the fun of it rather than trying to get back into live work in a serious way. I have finally conceded that my days of professional performing are well and truly over as I’m not physically capable of lasting out a gig and the insurance I need to get abroad to work is too expensive anyway. As well as the Mighty Dogheads recording project I’m working on with Phil Holmes I have started to work on a new venture with the working title of ‘Segomo’, thought by some to have been a Celtic deity but in fact was more likely to have been an epithet signifying the victorious and triumphant aspects of the gods. It’s also a groovy funky name that may be familiar to gamers who have played Super Stardust HD as being the final planet, and it also corresponds to the Tarot card the 6 of Wands that I drew the other day in relation to my future musical direction.
I’m still writing the book and the end appears to be in sight at last. I’ve also been thinking a lot about working on some kind of screenplay using all the various dreams and visions that I had when I was in a coma last year. I have bought a sketch book and some pencils and I’m going to try and draw some of the things I saw as it is too much for me to try and describe them using words alone. What I need really is a strong narrative to draw everything together and I am thinking of something along the lines of Life on Mars or The Singing Detective but I doubt if I am any good at that kind of story telling though I’m hoping these illustrations might eventually be some good to someone who is.
Finally, I have recently discovered the grave of my great Grandfather George Taylor who was a miner at Sutton Colliery who died in a roof fall there in 1915 at the age of 40 years. I have had it on my mind to go and look for it as my late mother had found out quite a bit about him including a newspaper cutting of the incident in the local paper. Armed with just enough information I set off in the rain to search for his grave at Skegby Church though I wasnot even sure that there would be any memorial stone or where about in the churchyard it might be. Within about 10 minutes I had found what was actually a very impressive grave though it appeared at first that it had been vandalised. It was quite an emotional experience for me sitting there in the rain but also very satisfying to have found it so easily. Subsequent research has revealed that the stone was actually laid down by the council as it was considered to be an ‘Elf & Safety’ risk some years ago and that at today’s prices it would have probably cost around £4000 to purchase. As George was a ‘Day taller’ -a miner payed by the day- our family would not have been able to afford such a magnificent grave at the time, and it is more than likely that the mine owners as well as a collection among his fellow mineworkers payed for the stonework. I am currently trying to raise the funds to have the stone re-erected and secured both as a physical memorial to our family heritage, but also as a small tribute to all the miners of the region who gave their blood for the coal that contributed so much to the prosperity of these Isles and its people, (though we can argue about who actually profited the most from their blood).
