It is around 1993, late afternoon and I am at the stage entrance to the Burnley Mechanics theatre. The Diving Ducks, the area’s premier R’n’B outfit are playing tonight supporting the legendary Sherman Robertson, from America. Legendary in certain niche blues circles anyway. I’m looking forward to this. A proper stage, crew, onstage mix, and a dressing room that if I am lucky, won’t give me hepatitis B. We will have a full house too, mainly there to see a true bluesman of some international repute, but also in part to see our singer Lindsey Smith, an outstanding talent and as good as anyone I have ever played with. Not only that, the crew are about to carry my gear in while I smoke a particularly satisfying cigarette. I may even have lounged. It is a far cry, I reflect, from the Polished Knob in Todmorden, but then isn't everywhere?
My gear is laid carefully on the stage when I finally stub my fag out and make my way into the hall. We are only the support band, so I want to get my keys set up and be out of the way when the headline arrives. Getting in the way of the main act would be so, well, amateurish. There is plenty of room, (Sherman is only a 3 piece) and I am going to do the job right. Gaffa tape the leads down nice and bonny, fix the pedals immovably to the floor, make sure the second tier for the Hammond is exactly right, the mic stand perfectly adjusted. Everything, in short, that would signal that this is a musician with a professional outlook and that you clearly need have no concerns about his competence or his fitness to be on stage with some of the top American blues players of their time. Then I am going to relax, find some beer, get completely bolloxed and thoroughly enjoy my evening.
I do all this in a dimly lit black cube. The backdrop is black, the wings are black and the safety curtain is black. I finish the last bit of taping and check the set up for comfort. This will take some disassembling later, but for now it is as secure and solid as the bank of England. (This is before 2008 of course). Some gigs, depending on the flooring, my sustain pedal will make a sudden dash for freedom, attracted by the bright lights of London no doubt and the youthful dream of finding a keyboard player who shows it some appreciation and doesn’t make such a racket. Other times the weight of my second keyboard can be too much for the arms of my stand and they will begin to lean to the left in concert, like two slow motion and asthmatic windscreen wipers making their last traverse and trapping my left hand between the two keyboards to the barely disguised glee of Shug, my bass player. Even more ludicrously, I have had the centre pole of the drum stool I use for gigs suddenly slip through its tripod arrangement of feet as the screw gives way. This means I drop precipitately a foot and half with a faint shriek, leaving me peering over the keyboards like a ten year old in a chip shop.
Well not tonight. Despite the enveloping darkness of the entirely black drapery I have secured every moving part of my set up.
There is a faint crackle and a disembodied voice floats through the on stage intercom. “Just going to test the safety curtain, that OK?” “Cool” I say, affecting nonchalance, as if this happens at every gig I play. I’m quite excited by this to be honest, the curtain going up, looking out at a proper theatre again, the serried rows of soon to be filled seats. There is a swishing noise from the rear and I can feel a sudden suspicious draft down my spine. Slightly disorientated I peer round on my drum stool like a puzzled Terry Jones as the unmistakeable sound of sniggering comes through the intercom. Twisted uncomfortably round in my seat I watch the safety curtain finish its tortuous ascent, and there is the Mechanics auditorium in all its municipal glory.
Behind me.
I don’t of course mention this to the other Ducks in the dressing room. It’s quite a big gig so we are a little bit hyper and possibly drinking a little more than we ought (although to be fair we have always set the bar of professionalism in that particular area fairly low). Myself, Pete the drummer, Tony Duck and Chris the bass player are like four Piglets to Lindsey’s Christopher Robin. Whilst we become over excited and a little squeaky Lindsey has her nose buried calmly in a book. The odd fellow musician or Duck’s fan pop their heads round the dressing room door and more drinks arrive but Lindsey takes no notice, she is engrossed in her reading, even taking her book with her into the wings when it’s show time and folding the corner of her page carefully down as we are introduced. Then she flips a switch and frankly blows the bloody doors off. The Ducks are good. Tony Duck is an very tasty blues guitarist. Put him alongside Lindsey who tonight, as on most nights, is sublime and you have a band to savour. Encores for support bands are usually of the polite well mannered type. The audience is usually displaying merely a thoughtful and friendly civility. Tonight they really mean it, and to be fair this usually happens at the Mechanics, where we support other name bands. After the first call back we have to refuse any more as encroaching on Sherman’s set would be crass and not at all the done thing. Nonetheless it’s been a buzz and we dive into the dressing room to finish the evening with the appropriate, and no doubt eventually regrettable level of self indulgence we feel we have earned. Lindsey, however, just snuggles up in the corner and picks up her book. The stage manager, a lugubrious Brummie pokes his head through the door.
“Fabulous guys, as ever. Lindsey, do us a favour would you?” Lindsey looks up momentarily from her book. “Do the announcement for Sherman, you know, bring him on, they’ll know your voice it will be cute. Just from the wings, you don’t have to traipse onstage or anything. It will have a bit more pizzazz than me doing it”. “No problem darling”, says Lindsey, half listening. “Just give us a shout”. She smiles briefly and then her nose is back in her book. I sit by her, draining a bottle of Peroni. “Good book then?” I say, I’m always interested in what people are reading. “Can’t put it down Nick, I love his books, I’m obsessed probably, pass me a beer, I think I’ll have one now we’ve finished”. She yawns. Sherman and his band shuffle by our open dressing room door on their way to the stage. Good wishes and compliments are exchanged, a nice bunch of guys. “Better go up” says Lindsey, slipping lithely out of the dressing room after them, still with her book. I tag along, to take in the beginning of Sherman’s set from the wings.
The band take their places; plug their leads in, exchange in-jokes. Sherman nods that they are ready. The manager passes over a mic to Lindsey, stood out of sight in the corner. “Ladies and Gentlemen” She begins as the lights dim and a hush of expectancy descends over the theatre. “Please put your hands together and give up a warm Burnley welcome to, all the way from the U S of A, the very great, the legendary, (dramatic pause)......... MR. SIDNEY SHELDON!”
I suspect, after all these years, that ‘The Ducks’ were better than we all realised at the time. There is a recording somewhere, which I have tragically lost, of us playing at another local theatre, Colne Municipal Hall. This would have been either playing ‘The Great British Blues Festival’ or supporting another fairly well known American called Walter Trout. (I’m assuming Walter Trout is his real name, I mean, you wouldn’t change your name to Walter Trout would you? “Hi, my real name is Dash Riprock, but call me Herbert Haddock, it’s kind of sexier”). Anyway, on this recording is the Diving Duck’s version of a song called ‘Guilty’ by Randy Newman. After the first chorus Lindsey hits a note and holds it with such perfection and grace while the band drop out that there is a moment of stunned silence before the whole theatre erupts. It used to make the hairs on my neck stand to attention. So, if anyone out there has that recording...
I come from Blackburn. There is always a rivalry between Blackburn and Burnley. I’m sorry, I’m giggling as I type. Rivalry is not even remotely the appropriate euphemism for what exists between the two towns. Naked unreasoned tribal visceral hostility doesn’t begin to describe it even. Football is its major conduit of course. A small episode perfectly illustrates this. For some years, Blackburn Rovers had been in the ascendancy football-wise for some time, thanks to the great wealth of owner Jack Walker. Somehow, and most improbably, Burnley also managed to get promoted to the premier league, or first division as it should be more properly called by anyone of taste and sense. This meant for the first time since the war, possibly, there would be a local derby with both teams in the top tier of football. Driving through Burnley that week I noticed a sandwich board outside a pub, advertising what would be on its giant screen that weekend. ‘This Sunday’ it proudly read, ‘Burnley versus Bastards’. I was there the year the Burnley fans properly set fire to one of the stands at Ewood Park, Blackburn’s ground, during an FA cup tie. The game had to be halted and the fire brigade summoned. Mind you, I still think it would have been a more impressive gesture if it hadn’t been the stand they were in at the time.
Burnley has always had the music scene however. Blackburn’s cultural desert has tumbleweed blowing dismally across it. We have the most gorgeous public hall with several stages and auditoriums that is a glorious monument to when cotton was king, when Blackburn was a flourishing and affluent town, arguably second only to Manchester in the North West in wealth and importance. King Georges Hall was just made for festivals and the big gigs.
Instead we get Daniel O’Donnell.
There used to be a pub in Blackburn called the Alma Yerburgh, named after the wife of one of the town’s 19th century brewers. Thwaites, the brewer in question, were going to close this down in the early nineties; it was slightly out of the centre and not doing so well. A local timber merchant used to drink there, in the snug. (Lots of pubs then had a snug, a small comfortable room for regulars, always without the ubiquitous television or piped music and they had comfortable chairs, often small armchairs. I miss them). Anyway, he thought sod this! They are not closing my pub; I’ll buy the damned place myself. So that’s exactly what he did, and continued to drink every weekend in what was now essentially his own private public house. The rest of the venture he left to his son Steve, he just wanted his snug and his long time drinking mates. Steve was an avid music fan and saw an opportunity for music promotion in the big main room of the pub. He had a puppy-like enthusiasm for live music. He decorated the place and installed a stage of sorts. He changed its name to ‘The Stoneyhurst’ after the road it stood on. I used to drink there and, being about the only piano player in Blackburn with his own piano, would turn up with various outfits on a regular basis. I got to know Steve, a likeable and enterprising guy, quite well. He was aspirational, always hoping he could lift his unpromising Blackburn venue into something a little more than just another pub gig. On one occasion he managed to book an American blues player called Bill something or other who was doing a small UK tour. He was pretty well known in America apparently, or at least well known enough to be doing a few decent blues venues up and down the country, finishing with The Old Grey Whistle Test and the Paul Jones blues show on Radio 2. He wasn’t well known enough however, to be able to afford to bring his own band over and was either doing solo shows, or using pick up bands along the way. Steve had managed to whittle down the fee by offering him a band and a week’s free lodging while he did a few North West shows. One of them was to be a band gig at Steve’s very own venue. Would I be in the band? Of course I would Steve, for you, my pleasure entirely. Er, will there be any money involved at all?
We would even rehearse one evening, that’s how professional the whole deal was. I don’t recall the entire band that night, a guy called Bert on bass I imagine, along with Shug the only go-to bass player in town. If you needed a top bass player, call Bert, There was also a guy called Tommy who was essentially a singer but also played harp, (harmonica to you) upside down. (A lot of harmonica player’s play upside down. It isn’t a technique, it’s an error. Typically they are singers or non players who take up the harmonica to bring in a bit of colour, or add a string to their bow. A harp comes with some instructions but ‘This way up’ isn’t one of them. It is pure chance they hold it the correct way when they first learn to play. By the time someone gingerly points out it’s upside down it’s too late. They’ve got some good riffs off, worked out the basics and they’re not going to sodding well start all over again thank you very much, do I tell you how to play piano?)
The rehearsal went well and Bill turned out to be a most excellent chap. It also happened to be his birthday. Feeling it might be slightly dispiriting for such a nice guy to find himself so far from Carolina in a decaying town in North West England in the middle of its red light district, (not really a district, Blackburn couldn’t quite run to a whole district, it was more the red light street), we joined him in the snug for a good old drink to celebrate, or if we couldn’t go that far, at least commiserate.
Now Blackburn, like most towns of its size, has a bus station. In a rare example of thoughtful town planning this was situated right next to the train station. (Realising this was far too convenient and sensible it has recently been relocated, not absolutely miles away, but certainly far enough to ensure you are pissed wet through when you do eventually board your bus). The old bus station, and general rendezvous point and focus for the town centre has always been known as ‘The Boulevard’. Don’t ask me why. It did have a tree I guess, a lonely Ash behind the graffiti strewn statue of Queen Victoria. Riddled improbably with Dutch Elm disease, potato blight and carbon monoxide poisoning, it wheezed gently in the drizzle for decades, but that was it basically. Nonetheless, the ‘Boulie’ has been the fixed polar star in any Blackburnian’s consciousness for generations. It had moulded concrete 1920’s bus shelters each covered in the abalone sheen of countless years of uncleared pigeon shit. The benches along the edge housed possibly the largest collection of expletive adept alcoholic mental cases outside of Glasgow and it had a small brick cafe no-one in their right mind would actually buy anything ingestible from. It abutted Europe’s most utterly unremarkable grime encrusted cathedral, and most days it rained.
And it was called the Boulevard.
No one in Blackburn under 50 has not arranged at some point in their teens to meet a girl on the ‘Boulie’ or has not been stood up there, waiting in slowly waning hope and growing embarrassment under the pitiless and disapproving gaze of the Empress of India whilst calculating how long your pride should allow before you give up and get the bus back home. The ‘Boulie’ was simply the ‘Boulie’ and it was where you met up for the pictures, the football, a date, arrived at, or left the town centre and you probably had your first goodnight snog there too.
To give you an idea how ingrained this is, and I have no doubt most towns have something similar, I was once on the ordinary service train to Grimsby to watch the Rovers play there in division 3. (Look, I’m a lotus eater alright? A hedonist. It’s just who I am, I can’t help it). It wasn’t the football special that day, or, even more glamorously, the ‘League-Liner’, that they used to run for football fans in the seventies. It was just the common or garden scheduled all station stopper. That meant there were no coaches or special buses laid on for the hordes of Blackburn fans arriving for the big match. (Seven of us, if you count Cinzano Cheryl who only went because she didn’t ever take her eye off her over sexed and untrustworthy boyfriend, Dirty Darren). Leaving the station and walking out into the intoxicating allure of downtown Grimsby, the few Rovers fans from the train stood there, slightly flummoxed as to where the ground was, or where we might get a bus to it. Spying a railway porter unconvincingly sweeping the concourse, one confident Rovers fan, sporting a rather fetching pair of bluebird neck tattoos and a Harrington jacket, marched straight up to him and, to his utter bafflement asked, “ ‘Ere cock, where’s your Boulie?”
Back in the snug, we were coming to the end of the drinking session and our new found friend Bill was manfully trying to ignore the fact that he was from the sun drenched southern USA, was turning thirty that night and all his life so far amounted to was this, stuck in a North of England pub, drinking what surely they can’t really believe is beer, thousands of miles from his loving wife, surrounded by drunken musicians whose accents must be unintelligible even to their fellow Englishmen, in a part of a town celebrated largely for the availability of quite astonishingly unattractive prostitutes. He didn’t need cheering up; he should have been on suicide watch.
Tommy the harp player stood up purposefully, emptying the last of his pint as he did so. “Right Bill” He shrugged his jacket over his shoulders and nodded to each of us. “Work tomorrow,” he said with an tone of responsibility and good sense that had been noticeably absent for the last seven pints. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the cold outside. “I’m off down the Boulie for a bus”. He strode out of the pub, bouncing inelegantly off the door jamb. “Boulie?” queried Bill. “He means Boulevard”, I explained.
For a moment you could see Bill was transported, carried in his mind’s eye to the clapperboard antebellum tree lined warmth and bougainvillea scented beauty of Charlottesville, North Carolina, away from the grey relentless rain and grime of Lancashire, England on a damp Tuesday night. He could picture his lovely wife and beautiful children stood waiting for him bathed in the sunshine.
“You mean you guys got a boulevard”?
A few months later Steve called me, barely able to keep the excitement from his voice. “Nick, guess who I have booked for ‘The Stoneyhurst’ next month?” He didn’t give me a moment to do so however. “The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, that's who,here, at ‘The Stoneyhurst’. I’ve actually booked them”. He sounded triumphant. “Wow”, I responded. “I mean, really, wow. That’s going to set you back, even nowadays”
“I can cover it, it will have to be ticket only and I’ll have to do some marketing. As long as I break even really. It will definitely put us on the map. Er, what do you mean even nowadays?”
“Well”, I said cautiously, as a horrible suspicion had begun to form itself.
“You do know Alex Harvey himself died last year don’t you?”
There was a pause.
“Pardon?” said Steve.