More Trouble Everyday

Summer's End (warning: contains death, horror and jazz)

2011-10-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

As one season ends and another begins, it seems a good time to reflect on the year so far. So, here goes.

As far as gigs were concerned, 2011 has been a real success. I’ve revisited old haunts and gained fans in some unfamiliar places, too. The “Summer Swings Tour” ended at The Wirral Hundred in Noctorum and I couldn’t have asked for a better finale. I played to a packed house, all of whom were behind me all the way. Here’s the set list:-

Come Fly With Me
You Make Me Feel So Young
Bad Leroy Brown
Somewhere There’s A Someone For Everyone
The Best Is Yet To Come
Let There Be Love
Night And Day
The Lady Is A Tramp
The Summer Wind
The Way You Look Tonight
L-O-V-E
Interval
Music To Watch Girls Go By
Wonderwall
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
King Of The Road
Sway
That’s Amore
Mack The Knife
My Kind Of Town
Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me
That’s Life
My Way
New York, New York/Bows
Encore: Birth of The Blues

What was really nice about this show was that it was performed at a pub that used to be my local. It was also my dad’s favoured drinking hole, too, and at the interval I managed to grab some time at the bar with a few of his old pals. Despite the great atmosphere and the wonderful reception, it’s unlikely that I’ll be paying many more visits to The Hundred. The pub scene is dying and the remaining venues tend to play it safe when booking entertainers. We Brits aren’t really a nation of swingers (erk!) and singers such as I are more likely to find work on cruise ships and at weddings than they are at your local boozer. Ce la vie.

Another string to my bow is that I write short stories and this past month has seen the completion of two little chillers – Black Comedy and The Woodsman. Check them out on Amazon. Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=stefan+livesey&x=17&y=19

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’ve long been a frustrated horror writer – my frustration being that I’ve never been able to finish a story – so I’m quite chuffed to finally see some of my stuff in print.

Keep an eye on that Amazon page because there’s more tales to come.

Some news that is less celebratory is that the old man passed away last week. He’d had a short but painful fight against cancer so it really is for the best that his struggle is now over. My mum died four years ago so now, at the ripe old age of 39, I find myself an orphan!

We’ll be marking my dad’s passing at the family church on October 17th. After that it’s back on the road for more gigs. The show, as always, must go on.

Before I bring this latest update to a close, I must recommend to you some of the stuff I’ve been listening to lately. I’m a big fan of Miles Davis and this past week I’ve been rediscovering his late sixties/early seventies phase.

In 1969, Miles released In A Silent Way and thus ushered in a whole new sound in jazz, a sound so new, so innovative, that nobody really had a name for it (In A Silent Way has since been heralded as the start of “ambient” music, although the arrangements of Miles were a lot more interesting than what passes for ambience today). The album was succeeded the following year by Bitches Brew and this, too, was a new direction in music. This time, they called it “jazz fusion” and over the course of the next decade Miles continued to refine and reshape this beautiful and adventurous new sound. Jazz fusion has been with us a long time (every musician who played on Bitches Brew went on to form their own band, earning even greater successes once they’d left Miles’s “mother ship”) but still nothing compares to the sound of Bitches Brew. Hearing that album is hearing a pioneering musician, always restless, never truly satisfied, throwing open a door on a world hitherto unseen and unknown and taking along anyone brave enough to go with him.

Bitches Brew. Dig it.

Saturday Night At The Rugby Club

2011-07-27T13:41:00.000-07:00

How long have I been gone? The continuing success of the Summer Swings Tour has kept me away from the world of Blogdom for far too long and there are updates aplenty in the offing. For now, though, I'll just give an update on the latest gig.

Saturday saw me accept an invitation to play at Port Sunlight Rugby Club. My son has been training there all season and as a result I've become quite familiar with the place. As a favour, I played an hour-long slot in support of a local band of young fellas. I'd never played a support slot before so it was nice to get up there, do my thing, and then relax and get merrily smashed whilst somebody else rounded the night off.

The audience - small as they were - were great and whilst nobody was brave enough to take to the floor, there was a fair bit of singing along and every tune was greeted with plenty of applause. As you'll see from the accompanying setlist, I ditched most of the slow numbers in favour of a hit-em-between-the-eyes-for-sixty-minutes type of show. It seemed to work and we're already talking about going back there in the near future.

Only next time, I'll be headlining...and I won't be drinking quite so much!

Come Fly With Me
Bad Leroy Brown
Wonderwall
Memories Are Made Of This
Ain't That A Kick In The Head
Luck Be A Lady
Music To Watch Girls Go By
Can't Take My Eyes Off You
King Of The Road
Sway
That's Amore
Mack The Knife
My Kind Of Town
That's Life
New York, New York/Bows

A Review Of The Last Gig

2011-05-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I played at The Hooton in Eastham Village. It's been a good while since I was last there so I jumped at the chance to go along and do my thing. The last time I played The Hooton must rank as one of the best gigs I've ever played, so there was some pressure to make sure this show lived up to the last one. Turns out I needn't have worried; we had a great time and I'm hoping to play there again soon.

Anyway, here's a review of the gig.

The Hooton is one of those small, unassuming pubs, the likes of which were closing on a regular basis under the last government. Thank goodness, then, for a supportive community who frequent such a place, because small village bars like these need to stay open. They are the hub of every estate and small town; if it’s not happening here then it’s not happening anywhere.

Tonight, though, is a real happening. It marks the return – and a long overdue one at that – of one of the most exciting singers currently working the local circuit. More used to larger venues, he’s playing this cosy bar tonight quite simply “Because I was asked.” And from the moment he starts singing, it’s clear that he didn’t have to think twice before taking up the offer, because tonight’s audience, packed into The Hooton on this hot, sweaty Sunday evening, are with him every step of the way.

One by one, the greatest swinger in town bounces through all the great songs – Come Fly With Me, Luck Be A Lady, That’s Life, My Kind Of Town – pausing only for a sip or to engage in a little by-play with the crowd. At one point, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, he mentions that he must be “the hottest man in the room tonight” which prompts a young lady, who has been on the edge of her ringside seat for the duration of the show, to shout out “Too right, you’re gorgeous!” It’s a remark that nearly stops the night in its tracks, as Stefan openly considers the idea of cutting loose so he can spend a few hours with this starry-eyed broad. Thankfully, it’s all in jest and, to everyone’s delight, he starts singing again. This, perhaps, is the key to his popularity: women can throw themselves at him during a performance, knowing full-well that he won’t take advantage (that wedding ring, after all, never leaves his finger, and he often mentions his wife during a show). He might be gorgeous, but he’s also safe – and this is often to the relief of married men in the audience who see their wives getting giddy whenever they hear Stefan’s dulcet tones.

After not one, not two, but three encores, the show finally comes to a close. “Three years is far too long to be away,” says the boy singer. And then he’s gone into the night, leaving behind a bar full of people who are hoping it won’t be another three years before he passes this way again.

Not bad, eh?

And here's the set-list:

1

One O’Clock Jump
Bad Leroy Brown
The Lady Is A Tramp
Somewhere There’s A Someone For Everyone
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Young At Heart
The Summer Wind
L-O-V-E
"The Tea Break" (Monologue)
Gentle On My Mind
Wonderwall
Luck Be A Lady
I Won’t Dance
Fly Me To The Moon/One O’clock Jump (reprise)

2
Come Fly With Me
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
Sway
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
"Happy Birthday, Amy"
That’s Amore
Mack The Knife
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me
That’s Life
My Kind Of Town
Minnie The Moocher
Birth Of The Blues
New York, New York/Bows

King Of The Eighties Part Three - No Jacket Required

2011-01-26T03:58:00.000-08:00

The years following Hello, I Must Be Going were active ones for Phil Collins. Genesis had found a new sound, a new direction, and were consolidating their success with sell-out tours across America, where their music was reaching a much younger audience than ever before. When Phil wasn't recording or on the road with the "mother band", he was playing and recording with other musicians. Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, Brian Eno, Pete Townsend, John Cale, Eric Clapton, Philip Bailey, Howard Jones, Adam And The Ants...Phil's session work alone would have been enough for most; it's nothing less than remarkable that ha was also juggling his solo career, Genesis and Brand X all at the same time.

Of course, this ubiquity would ultimately start to rub some folk up the wrong way. During the eighties, you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of his songs, causing Ray Davies of The Kinks to make an especially barbed comment about Phil checking his Rolex whilst playing the drums, just to see what time his next session was. (Of course, this didn't stop Phil backing Ray when he played the Buckingham Palace gig in 2002.)

Phil's approach to his work was in part a reaction to the (all-too-often accurate) view of rock stars as self-indulgent and lazy, tossing out the odd album only when the royalties started to dry up. Not only that, though, Phil actually enjoyed his job and if being at the peak of his profession allowed him to play with some of his musical heroes whilst at the same time playing with some of the young Turks who weren't even around when he was recording albums like Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, then who was he to turn these opportunities down? His disarming pragmatism was a breath of fresh air when compared to the inflated egos of the Bowies and Jaggers of this world.

When Phil started work on his third album he had no more idea of how it would turn out than he did with the previous two records. However, his admiration for multi-instrumentalist and flavour of the month, Prince, is all over the record like beans on toast, giving No Jacket Required a much harder-edged R'n'B sound than before. After the warm and organic sound of Hello, I Must Be Going, this is like a bucket of cold water in the face.

Synthesisers, drum machines, gleaming horns, multi-tracked vocals and synth drums carry most of the tunes here as Phil wins over the listener with syncopated rhythms. If the man's career were to be defined by one album alone, then this would be it. In fact, No Jacket Required wasn't just the definitive Phil Collins record, it was the definitive sound of the entire decade.

Part of the record's appeal is down to its ebullience; gone is the mawkish sound that characterised much of Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going - Phil is over the girl now and just wants to dance. Sussudio, Only You Know And I Know, Who Said I Would, I Don't Wanna Know and Don't Lose My Number each take you by the hand with a desperate urgency, while the hypnotic melodies of Long, Long Way To Go, One More Night and Take Me Home linger in the memory long after the album has finished.

If the subject matter of the album seems just like more of the same from the troubled troubadour, then look again. Whilst most of the songs are yet more meditations on the often tricky relationships between men and women, Phil addresses some pretty serious issues here, too, namely terrorism (in Long, Long Way To Go) and the issue of the abandonment of mental health patients (in the ever-popular Take Me Home). Heavy stuff. However, such issues were not expected of someone like Phil (Peter Gabriel, yes, but not Phil) and so the songs, while well received, were overlooked in terms of lyrical content (Phil would reaffirm his commitment to social issues on his next album).

Once again, Phil was well served by a fine band of musicians. As well as familiar names such as Peter Robinson, The Phoenix Horns and Daryl Stuermer, celebrated bass player Leland Sklar makes his first appearance on a Phil Collins album here and there's also a raft of vocal talent (Sting, Helen Terry and Peter Gabriel) to provide the backing.

During the recording of the album, Phil broke off for an afternoon to play drums on the Band Aid single and would return to lend his weight to the Live Aid concert the following year. Around this time he also recorded Easy Lover with Philip Bailey (Phil also produced, sang and played on the album from which that song came) and Separate Lives with Marilyn Martin.

When he took the album out on the road - in a show dubbed Phil Collins And The Hot Tub Club (no, I don't know where he gets these ideas from, either) he played Europe, North America, Japan and Australia. With the incomparable Lee Sklar replacing Mo Foster on bass, the band was otherwise unchanged from its last outing. The playing was tighter than a gnat's chuff.

Unsurpisingly, much of the material came from the new album, which left no room for songs like I Missed Again and Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away (although If Leaving Me Is Easy remained a highlight of the show). An early casualty of the set list was the exuberant Brand X instrumental, And So To F and I can't help but feel this was dropped due to its unfamiliarity to the audience, who were increasingly becoming of the middle-aged housewife variety. This association would continue to trouble Phil for much of his career but in playing down the jazz-fusion side of his playing, I can't help but feel - on this occasion at least - Phil was actively inviting such criticism.

Upcoming Film, Inbred

2010-12-19T15:28:00.001-08:00

An old friend of mine has made me aware of an upcoming British horror film called Inbred. Watching the trailer, I can see this is definitely my kind of flick.

It takes the premise of my all-time favourite horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that people who live out in the sticks are a little bit odd, and applies it to Yorkshire. Going by the trailer alone, the result is terrifying.

Furthermore, the soundtrack is by said friend, so check it out (the music on the trailer is pant-wettingly scary).

Here's a link to the official site.

http://www.inbredmovie.com/trailer.php

King Of The Eighties Part Two: That Difficult Second Album

2010-12-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

Coming off the back of a Genesis tour, Phil went into the studio to record his second album, Hello I Must Be Going. In contrast to the spontaneity of Face Value, this time Phil set himself a deadline of six weeks within which to write and record. The result is a much more focused affair, with Phil employing a regular band rather than a bunch of random guest musicians to realise his vision.

The Earth Wind And Fire horn section (now named The Phenix Horns) were back again, as was guitarist Daryl Stuermer. Bass duties were shared between Mo Foster and Brand X's John Giblin. Also from Brand X was keyboardist Peter Robinson.

While the background to Face Value had been Phil's split from first wife Andrea, resulting in the painful introspection of songs such as You Know What I Mean and If Leaving Me Is Easy, this time the separation was absolute and the divorce lawyers had moved in. So, where any anger on Face Value was unfocused - as with the song In The Air Tonight - here Phil's personal attacks are a lot more direct. The opening salvo of I Don't Care Anymore is a snarling rebuke to his ex-partner and is driven along by a pounding and incessant drum pattern. Strong stuff.

Elsewhere, the cynicism of lyrics such as I Cannot Believe It's True and It Don't Matter To Me is belied by the upbeat style of the music, which this time is more reminiscent of The Four Tops than John Martyn. The message here is clear: Phil might be pissed off but his spirit remains undaunted.

Phil doesn't just dwell on his own personal issues here, though. Like China, for example, tells of a teenage boy's attempts to get into his girlfriend's knickers. A bright and breezy tune, featuring an angular guitar riff from Daryl, it provides a refreshing contrast to the bitterness of some of the other songs.

Thru These Walls delves into darker territory, with its tale of a voyeur. What might have sounded gratuitous or contrived by other artists is handled with sensitivity here. Phil's impassioned singing allows the listener to feel genuine sympathy for the plight of the song's lead character.

The West Side is a jazz instrumental, an unbridled tribute to the big band sound of Buddy Rich. The tune is a real showcase for The Phenix Horns and saxophonist Don Myrick plays a stellar solo here.

And who can forget Phil's cover version of You Can't Hurry Love?

All in all, Hello I Must Be Going is a hopeful album. It might not be as startling or diverse as Face Value but it still provides a solid and satisfying listen.

The album's release was followed by a four month tour of North America, Canada and Europe which saw Phil and his band (dubbed The Fabulous Jacuzzis And One Neat Guy) play most of Face Value and Hello I Must Be Going, with an encore of Brand X's And So To F and the Curtis Mayfield classic People Get Ready.

Phil's star was clearly in its ascendency. With the next album, it would go supernova...

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

2010-12-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

Well, it's nearly here, it really is.

Today was the day when the Livesey family made their annual pilgrimage to Santa's Grotto. Since my mum died, it's mattered more to me that I take my kids to the grotto that I always went to as a kid. So, for the second year running, we've made sure to see Santa in Lewis's Grotto in Liverpool. Lewis's has the oldest grotto in the world, so it stands to reason that, of all the grottos out there, it's Lewis's where you can be certain to see the real Santa Claus.

If going to see Santa doesn't get you in the mood for Christmas then you'd better get yourself checked out for a heartbeat. Of course, it helps to have a couple of kids who understand the spirit of the season like my two do.

The visit to Santa over, Debbie and I went our separate ways to spend some money. There really is nothing like buying presents for the one you love; as feel-good moments go, it takes some beating. When we met up later, Debbie eyed my packed shopping bags suspiciously. She'll have to wait until Christmas morning before she finds out what was in them.

All that remains now is the wrapping. I have a bottle of red and the Phil Spector Christmas Album for accompaniment - what more could any man need?

My Life Is Good

2010-12-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

As I sit here, the blazing winter sun streaming through the window behind me, Christmas tree to my right, my boy sat before me, studiously sketching with colouring pencils, Frank Sinatra's voice filling the room with soft, velvet pounces, it's hard to deny that life is good.

Sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom to realise just how high you were. And, while I'm sure I'll know worse times in my future, I have to fess up that this year's been pretty dire. But, like George Bailey in one of my favourite films, It's A Wonderful Life, I've realised that everything I ever needed was right there in my hand, just at the point where I nearly let it all slip away.

It's apposite that this realisation comes as the year trembles on the edge of extinction, with the world outside as pretty as a Christmas card.

I've long seen this time of year as the moment when you turn to your lover, or your best friend (or your dog, if that's all you have) and say: "Look at that. We made it. Another year, and we're still here. Whatever we've been through, we're both still here." And then you give them a pressie. That's Christmas to me: rewarding each other for making it through.

I've got a lot of rewards to give out this year.

Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely

2010-10-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

Many people ask me what my favourite Frank Sinatra album is. Well, that's like asking me who my favourite child is. There honestly isn't an album by The Chairman that isn't my favourite for one reason or another. And so I thought I might use this place to discuss them all, as the mood takes me.

In no particular order, I'm going to start with the 1958 album Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely.

Firstly, let's get the trivia out of the way - and this is interesting stuff so don't skip it - this was Frank's ninth studio album and was recorded after his divorce from Ava Gardner was finalised; Nelson Riddle, who orchestrated and conducted the album, had just lost his mother and daughter before the sessions started; Frank, when asked at a party in the mid seventies, that deathless question "what is your favourite of all your albums" wasted no time on choosing this one.

Okay, so that establishes a certain kind of background, but what of the songs themselves? From the opening titular track a certain kind of stately, classical feel is established, and it stays for the duration of the album.

From Angel Eyes to Willow Weep For Me, from Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry to One For My Baby, this is an album whose sentiments are not for the faint of heart. This is loss with a capital L. It's a three in the morning album...no, it's not; it's an eight o'clock-in-the-morning-'til-three-in-the-morning-album. It's a record that throws its arm around you and doesn't let you go until it's walked you, unsteadily, to your bedroom door.

Frank Sinatra, that big, dependable older brother, might have buoyed you up before with albums such as Songs For Swingin' Lovers and Come Fly With Me, but that was when you were in love. Now, as you gaze alone out of the window, watching that lonely sun peeking above the horizon, the glass in your hand nearly empty, Sinatra is there to tell you that, painful as it is, the girl is never coming back.

Frank Sinatra would record many such albums as this - albums of torch songs; albums for losers - and he would always consider himself to be, at his very core, a saloon singer. Never would this be more apparent than on this stellar collection of songs.

King Of The Eighties

2010-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

I am a huge Phil Collins fan. There, I've said it. It's funny, but what became something of a shameful secret in the nineties has now lost all trace of stigma. Now it's perfectly okay to shout it from the rooftops: "I love Phil Collins!"

And why shouldn't it be? After all, the man was all over the place like beans on toast throughout the eighties. He had the Midas touch that all of his peers envied (which is why everyone from Eric Clapton and Robert Plant to Howard Jones and Adam And The Ants wanted him on their albums) and he sold a record or two. And there lies the rub: millions upon millions of people bought his records back in the day...where did these people disappear to when it became de rigeur to knock the little fella?

Anyway, I thought that given Phil is celebrating his latest album going straight to number one this week it was high time I celebrated a career that began in 1981 and, despite a retirement tour a few years ago, still shows no sign of ending. So here's to the singing drummer. Here's to the man who is fully deserving of the title: King Of The Eighties.

We'll start with Phil's first album, 1981's Face Value.

In 1979, smarting from an acrimonious split from his first wife, Phil Collins holed himself up in the spare bedroom with a keyboard, drum machine, microphone and an eight track and proceeded to write coded messages to his soon-to-be-ex- missus. He was not totally alone; new friend John Martyn was also going through a break-up and together they spent time variously getting drunk, writing songs, and taking turns on the telephone. The result was two of the most powerful, moving and innovative albums of the eighties: Martyn’s Grace And Danger and Collins’s Face Value. Unlike Martyn’s album, though, Face Value was Collins’s debut as a solo artist. A fact which makes the record all the more astounding for its achievements.

The diversity of the tracks is something to behold, from the ambient and eerie In The Air Tonight, to the R&B of I Missed Again, to the plaintive and unadorned You Know What I Mean, to the spacey Droned and a startling cover of Tomorrow Never Knows. At the heart of the album is Collins’s soulful vocals and driving, infectious drumming. There’s also a host of gifted musicians onboard to make this a wholly satisfying listen from start to finish.

“I wanted to get my heroes onto this record,” says Collins, who was understandably a little nervous about laying his soul out there for all to see; getting some top-notch players along might relieve some of the stress and lend some legitimacy to the album. Amongst the guest stars were Genesis band-mate Daryl Stuermer and Eric Clapton (guitars), John Giblin and Alphonso Johnson (bass), the Earth Wind And Fire horn section, Ronnie Scott, Stephen Bishop and Shankar. A pretty diverse list, but one that confounded some people; American radio, for example, were very hesitant to give the record airplay – a white guy with black musicians on his record? It was completely unheard of at the time, which only goes to show just how quietly revolutionary Collins actually is and how groundbreaking Face Value really was.

Part of the appeal of Face Value (and indeed the three the albums that followed it) is that it is not a record that hangs around waiting to be liked. In the eighties, there was immediacy to Collins’s arrangements which meant that even instrumental tracks such as Droned and Hand In Hand did not outstay their welcome, holding true to their essential groove and never becoming indulgent and showy.

Another aspect to Phil’s appeal as a performer, and one that would prove integral to his endurance throughout the decade, was his sheer likability. Whether in concert or being interviewed, there was an unmistakable decency about the bloke which made it nigh on impossible not to warm to him. Self-effacing, funny, charming and modest, Collins displayed none of the prima donna behaviour so associated with rock stars. Short and balding, he didn’t even look like the typical singer; it was his unashamed ordinariness (not for him, the offshore retreat in the sun; Phil lived on the main road in Sussex and his only indulgence was his train set and collection of Steve Martin albums. Rock on.) juxtaposed with his extraordinary talent which made him such an attractive proposition.

Undoubtedly surprised by the record’s success, Phil Collins had unwittingly discovered a winning formula for making records whose artistry was matched by their commercial success. Combining a knack for a pithy lyric whose strength was in its honesty (people could relate directly to what he was singing about because many of them had been there too) with a simple desire to play music that he liked. Listen to Face Value and you can hear Earth Wind And Fire, Motown, Weather Report, James Taylor, Isaac Hayes, The Beatles, the Delta Blues, Progressive Rock and The Jackson Five, all played by musicians who were hip to Collins’s groove and totally into the music.

Lui Lui Satterfield, the flamboyant trombonist with the EWF horn section put it thusly: “You look at Phil Collins and he looks like a farmer from England, he looks like he’s here to bring the tea, but when he sits down at that drum kit, that cat is hip as anybody else.” While Alphonso Johnson went as far as comparing Phil’s ability to get exactly what he needed out of his musicians to that of Frank Zappa.

Whatever the trick was to Collins’s unlikely success, Face Value was an enormous hit and nothing would ever be the same again for the balding drummer from Chiswick.

The Glamorous Life Of A Singer

2010-09-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

One of the most commonly asked questions of me, in response to my being a singer, is "Why don't you go on X Factor?" I try to be kind with my reply.

You see, I think the main difference between jobbing singers and musicians and the folk who apply to tv talent shows is that the former want to work and the latter want to be celebrities. If you want to be genuinely good at a job, you have to put in the hard slog - and the entertainment business demands more hard slog than any other. Ok, you might say, what about pipe-fitters, what about nurses, surely no-one works harder than they do? Well, without wanting to take anything away from their tireless work, I would still say that entertainers work longer and only get paid for a fraction of the time we put in. And, of course, when we are up there working we are doing it in front of a shedload of people we've never even met before - ask yourself, how many plumbers have to fix a drain in front of two-hundred strangers?

All of this might sound like a bit of a whinge. It most definitely isn't. I can think of no more rewarding a job than standing on a stage, singing songs I adore, and changing someone's night from a mediocre one into a memorable and fun-filled couple of hours.

But it is far from the glamorous, pampered life that I imagine the X Factor wannabees think it is.

So, at the risk of shattering all your delusions, let me expose a few showbiz myths here. I'll probably get kicked out of the musicians' version of The Magic Circle for this but what the hey.

I think the best way to illustrate how unlike a rock star's life my existence can be is to talk you through a regular working day. Now, hold onto your hat because this is explosive stuff.

On the day of a gig, I'll be awoken by the kids - I have two - who will invariably need feeding. So, in the words of Dolly Parton, I will "tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen" - no cup of ambition for me, though, not unless you count hot water with honey and lemon. Cereal made, I will go online, see if there are any messages for me. Any prep work for the gig (sequencing of tracks, acquiring and learning new songs, checking out the equipment, picking up the suit etc) would have been done by this point so at this time of the day it's really just a question of finding ways to fill the hours.

The deadliest thing for me on the day of a gig is to do nothing so usually I'll either spend the time out with the kids or visiting the old man - just anything that doesn't remind me of what I'm doing that night. It's very rare that I'll spend a gig day hanging out with the lads, though.

When it's time to leave, I pack all the gear in the back of the car - I used to have a roadie but in these days of recession and cuts, I've had to let him go (damn shame that because apart from setting up and taking down the gear, he was great company and he used to round up the groupies at the end of the night - hey, life on the road can get lonely) - kiss the kids and hit the road.

The drive to the gig is a strange one. This is where the restlessness truly begins (and it's where I miss the company of my old roadie the most, because I have no-one to talk to); I find it hard to relax to anything, whether it be listening to the radio or a CD, and an anxiety about the night's event starts to build - what will the venue be like? Will it be a good audience? Will they enjoy the songs? What will my voice be like? Will I be any good? All of these questions and probably a few more will go circling around my mind, and will continue to chase themselves right up to showtime.

With the gear all set up (and setting up in front of the crowd - which does happen if you're playing a pub - is such a disarming experience. I often feel like saying to the punters "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".) it's time to find somewhere to get changed. And this is where the real difference between the working musician and the fame-hungry X Factor hopefuls is at its most distinct. I do believe that the "I've-always-wanted-to-be-a-singer" types genuinely believe that there is a red carpet laid out from the chauffeur-driven limo right up to the door of the dressing room (which is itself festooned with the indulgences of its star - pink shag-pile carpets, bowls of M&Ms with all the brown ones taken out and seventy seven white doves in diamond-encrusted cages). And maybe that does happen for the annointed few who Simon Cowell has deemed to be talented enough to earn the coveted slot of this year's number one Christmas single (only to be followed by years of obscurity). But in the real world...no, there are no red carpets, no white doves - in fact you're lucky if the landlord even buys you a drink.

Again, this is not a whinge. I find it quite hilarious at the spaces I have been forced in to get my tuxedo on before going out to perform - put it this way, if you get a disabled toilet to put your gear on, it's a luxury. The fact that I manage to emerge from such surroundings still looking like a thing of beauty, with nary a crease or a speck of dirt to spoil my appearance, is quite miraculous when you consider the conditions of my, um, "dressing room".

Of course, this only applies to pubs - clubs, theatres and the like are all well served by decent rooms within which to get changed and as my pub appearances seem to get fewer the longer I go on with this career, the smell of disinfectant whilst I apply my Agua Lavanda is becoming little more than a Proustian rush.

As for the gig itself, well whatever the venue I give my all to suspend disbelief and to turn it into The Copa Rooms in The Sands circa 1966. And the audience themselves would be better informed as to how well I manage to pull that off; sometimes the impression you get from the stage is quite removed from how the act appears from the floor - almost always in a positive way, I have to say.

After the show, when I've sang my last encore and taken my final bow, when my brow has been mopped by an obliging redhead...or a blonde...or a brunette (I'm not fussy) and I've done all the schmoozing I need to do, that's when I take my leave, duck back into the disabled toilets and put the tux back into the suit bag. I re-emerge as Joe Blow, take down the gear, get in the car and make the journey home.

Going home is inevitably a more chilled journey than driving to the venue. I can listen to tunes now - usually something by Miles: Kind Of Blue or In A Silent Way -and just watch the night-life go by. It's not often that I will stay over somewhere when I've finished a show; there's something about getting into your own bed after a gig and besides, I'm usually well served by after-gig parties and swell company when I get home.

It's a strange life, though, filled with memorable moments. For instance, you spend the entire day thinking about a job that's only going to take you a couple of hours to do (travel time and rehearsals notwithstanding). And when you've done the job, you're still thinking about it, usually well into the next day and indeed until the next job. I'll tell you what, though, there is not a job that is more rewarding - both financially and spiritually - than being a singer. I love it.

Wonderwall

2010-09-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

Some weeks ago, the mixing was finally finished on a song I recorded some time ago. It's become of the more popular tunes in the act and has the rare appeal of being a song written less than fifty years ago!

I've put together a little slideshow of some pics that have been taken of me at a few gigs over the years and I hope you like it. As a first attempt, I don't think it's too bad (but Stanley Kubrick's ghost remains untroubled).

Miles Ahead

2010-09-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

I've given up on calling these entries Stefan The Story So Far because I can never remember which chapter I'm up to. So, basically, everything you read here is all me and if someone someday wants to arrange these entries into some kind of cohesive order...well that would be a pretty sad endeavour but it's something I have no control over (just like those bootlegs of my early performances at Tallulah's in New Brighton that are currently circulating amongst my fans in Paraguay).

Anyway, come with me - if you will - back to 1989. I am seventeen, it's my birthday, and I've just bought a record that will change my life. Now, I know that sounds a little dramatic, not to mention overused and cliched, but music is my life and whenever I discover new sounds they invariably have a profound effect on me. So when I say that the first time I heard Miles Davis - the record was Sketches Of Spain - it changed my life, I am not exagerrating.

Being white and working class, from an obscure, piss-ant little town in the North West of England, jazz music wasn't really a part of the local culture. If you wanted to get it in your soul you really had to go out and find it. I already had an awareness of jazz - my mum was pretty big on Louis Armstrong, my dad liked Sinatra and my cousin's husband positively worshipped Buddy Rich (he used to clear parties out within minutes when he put his records on the turntable) - but I had yet to submerge myself in its deep, unknowable waters.

I don't know what made me plump for Miles. I knew the name but nothing else. So, picking an album of his was really just a question of pot luck. I just knew that jazz was something I had to get into and Miles, being one of its leading lights, seemed to me the musician to start with.

Well, here we are 21 years later and I'm still enjoying the journey. My discovery of Miles led to Coltrane, Parker, Mahavishnu Orchestra (thanks, Boo), Brubeck, Dizzy, Mingus, Weather Report and so many more. And when I slough off this mortal coil I know I will not have even scraped the surface of this wonderful music - heck, if I'd even just stuck with one of those artists, I'd still need several lifetimes to harness their genius.

It's Miles I love the most, though. Maybe it's because he's the artist I started out with, maybe it's because of his attitude and mercurial nature, maybe it's because he caused about three or four musical revolutions in his lifetime, I don't know and I don't imagine it matters.

So much music is throwaway; it is what it is, it does what it does, but repeated listenings seldom reveal anything new or revelatory. And that's fine if that's what you want - plenty of people are quite content with the bubblegum effect of what they choose to listen to. But Miles is an artist whose work really reaches into you and if you give into it, if you let yourself go and surrender to it, it will take you to realms both inner and outer that you never knew existed. And you will be forever transformed by the experience.

Whether it's listening to a bouncy little tune like Budo from Birth Of The Cool (an album which was pivotal in the development of post-bebop jazz) or something from the hard bop years when Miles played with the likes of 'Trane, Cannonball Adderley and Philly Joe Jones, or something a little easier on the pulse like the stuff he recorded with Gil Evans - their collaboraion on Porgy And Bess has led to this being considered the definitive reading of the Gershwin opera - or anything from Kind Of Blue, Mile's most famous work. Or maybe electric Miles is more your thing, when Miles threw open yet another door and invented that which we now know as fusion (but at the time Miles, bemused by the need for labels, said "Call it anything"). If albums like Bitches Brew or On The Corner are just too wild for you, maybe Miles's eighties period is more to your liking. With albums such as Tutu and Amandla, Miles reinvented himself yet again, covering tunes like Time After Time, Perfect Way and Human Nature.

Even if you don't dig jazz at all, there is something in Miles's vast repetoire to engage your heart and soul. You only have to open up and let him in.

The Horror, The Horror, The Horror

2010-09-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

I don't remember what the first horror film I saw was but I imagine it was either one of the great Universal motion pictures or one of the slightly less great Hammer horrors. I do know one thing, though: I would have watched the film with my mother.

Now, just before I carry on let me say first that I started this blog some time after my mum died and I have deliberately not used it as a forum to discuss my feelings on her life and death - in the same way I have consciously avoided talking about any of the other great and good people who I have lost over the past twenty-odd years. I think that to limit my emotions to a few paragraphs on an internet page is incredibly limiting; the few people who know me both online and in private life know the depth of the love I feel for absent friends and know that I could never encompass all my thoughts on this blog. So, out of respect to those dear departed relatives and in deference to my own feelings, I shall remain largely silent unless absolutely necessary. Ergo, because my mum was responsible for encouraging my love of horror from an early age, it's essential that she play a large part in this article.

I was brought up in the seventies and as a young lad the world seemed to have a profound effect on me. The first image that scared me, for example, was a photograph of a girl with leprosy in a copy of Reader's Digest. The magazine sat in a pile of others on a table in the waiting room of the local surgery. My mum was casually flicking through it and, having glimpsed the picture, I asked her to show it to me. I took one look at it and nearly shat. Every time we went back to the doctor's, I asked her to show it to me again. And there lies the rub in mankind's attraction to horror: basically, we like to look at images that remind us of our mortality because they remind us we are still alive...for now, at least.

You doubt me? Okay, go to a funfair. Tell me, which is the longest queue? Is it for candy floss? Is it for the boats that glide tranquilly over still waters? Is it for those damned machines that cost you £2.00 to operate a claw that always stops short of grabbing the cuddly toy? Or is the longest queue for the rollercoaster that hurtles upside down at impossible speeds around death-defying bends? And now tell me, what is the response from the people when they're strapped into their seats, travelling at G-force, their stomachs now lodged in their throats? Are they happy and smiling, giving a big-thumbs up to the crowd below? Or are they screaming to burst their lungs, their eyes wild and staring, their hearts hammering to break their ribcage?

And like the babe in arms who shrieks at the word "Boo!", their first response when they come off the ride is "Again! Again!"

We like to be scared. We love to be scared. Being scared makes us feel alive.

My mum and I watched every horror film going back in the day. From Karloff in Frankenstein and Bride Of Frankenstein, Lugosi in Dracula and Lon Chaney Jnr in The Wolfman to the antics of Cushing and Lee in the lurid films of Hammer Studios; from The Wicker Man to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, from Halloween to The Evil Dead and from Salem's Lot to Hellraiser. Yes, we watched them all.

Obviously, a love of onscreen horror led to investigating what lay on the book shelf and whilst I couldn't tell you the name of the first film I saw, I can easily recall the name of the first horror novel I read. It was Guy N Smith's Night Of The Crabs. The title has proven more memorable than the actual story.

My reading tastes grew gradually more refined after that (how could they not?). So Guy N Smith begat the unintentionally hilarious Shaun Hutson (or is it Garth Merenghi?) who in turn led me to James Herbert. It was inevitable that I turned to Stephen King, as we all should, and I remain a fan to this day.

This was the mid-eighties. And there was a new young Turk on the horizon. "I have seen the future of horror," said Stephen King, "and his name is Clive Barker." Well, if it's good enough for Stevie...

Clive hails from Liverpool (so that's at least one reason to like him) and the fecundity of his imagination remains unrivalled in the field, even now, when Clive has since moved on to other things. His Books Of Blood were startling, his novels even more so. As Clive moved from horror to fantasy to children's books and then on to metaphysics, I followed, lapping up every word. The man's a bloody genius.

Of course, Liverpool doesn't boast just one visionary in the genre. There's Ramsey Campbell, too. His voice is probably the most unique in the field; really, you will never have come across a style like his. He takes the mundane and he twists it out of skew while you're not looking. Not since Poe has a writer managed to capture so well the feeling of paranoia and growing uncertainty. I love him, I do.

I suppose it was only natural that at some time I pick up my pen and start writing my own little horror stories. Taking my inspiration from some of these great writers, I knock out little tales of suburban terror. It's something I'm getting better at as I grow older; one day I might submit something to the publishers, see what comes of it.

My own take on writing horror - for what it's worth - is that it follows the same format as writing a joke (and I've written a lot of jokes over the years). You set the scene, you engage the reader, your timing has to be perfect and then you deliver an ending which is startling and unpredictable. And, like a joke, the horror story falls flat on its face if its pacing is all to cock and your reader sees the ending coming a mile off.

Personally, I like to take the reader by the hand with the promise of a safe journey. I wait until they're settled in, maybe play some familiar tunes as I drive and then, just as our welcoming destination appears in view, I push them out of the car. As they lie there, stunned, I slam the car into reverse and drive right over them. Twice, if I can manage it.

It's just the kind of person I am.

Fancy a lift?

The Horror Of The Schoolyard

2010-09-06T02:27:00.000-07:00

The kids went back to school today after what seemed an impossibly long summer break (of course, when I was a youngster, the summer holidays were never long enough). Standing in the playground with my daughter, I was reminded of just how terrifying that first week in September can be. Luckily, my two children are imbued with a confidence and strength of character that I didn't have at their age, and consequently they don't share the same anxieties as their father.

But, for kids who might be insecure about the way they look or speak or think, school years can be a long and drawn out nightmare. Now, at the this point you might be saying to yourself "Hang on, Stef; maybe in secondary school but surely not primary". Oh, really? Well I'm afraid you'd be forced to re-think that one.

Because we, as parents, have a terrible habit of filling these little empty cups with every prejudice and fear we have as adults. And we don't waste any time doing it, either. To wit, I heard a conversation a few days ago about that hoary old topic beloved of every right-wing journalist (that'll be most of them, then): immigration.

Now, as any of you who know me can attest, I have no problem at with immigration. I do not see it as the great threat that the media would have us believe. Why? Well, being the free-thinking motherfucker that I am, I subscribe to the notion that the media are part of the age-old conspiracy that a nation in fear is a nation who can be controlled. I know, whacky isn't it? If you doubt me, though, just read your history books. And open your eyes, even just a wee bit.

So, immigration then. Is it any different now to what it used to be? I very much doubt it. I think it's no coincidence that the fear of people coming into the country has risen dramatically since the World Trade Centre disaster. You only need to have the shortest of conversations with the people who have a problem with immigration to confirm this. When they talk of immigrants, is it American immigrants they object to? Canadian? Australian? No, it's invariably people whose skin colour is of a different hue and who - shock, horror - do not speak English. Well, friends and neighbours, I was brought up in Birkenhead, where there is no shortage of indigenous folk whose command of the Queen's English leaves a lot to be desired, so let's get a little perspective, eh?

So, let's be honest and lay the cards on the table: this is a race issue, nothing more, nothing less. It's just that these people now feel they have some justification for their views, based on the increasingly hysterical articles in The Daily Express or or The Daily Mail.

(Don't worry, Dear Reader, you will see where this all ties in in a moment.)

Back, then, to the conversation about immigration. Now, it has to be said that the people I heard discussing this did not appear to be naturally political coves. But I think it's a conversation that could be overheard anywhere in these mixed up times. We'll name the first chap Tom and the second one Peter.

Tom: "It's getting so you don't recognise this country anymore. A friend of mine had his lad expelled from school because a Pakistani kid told him to fuck off."

Peter: "So, what did the kid get expelled for?"

Tom: "He called him a P***. But he is a P***. P**** is short short for Pakistani."

Peter: "Yeah, it's only like them calling us Brits."

Tom: "Enoch Powell was right."

Peter: "My mate's son had a black kid call him four eyes, because he wears glasses. The school wouldn't do anything so his dad told him to call him a n*****."

And there lies the rub. Unless we stop teaching our kids these words, then this kind of mindless hatred will only continue. We will continue to assess someone's worth based on the colour of their skin, their religion, their sexuality, how they look, how they dress, how they speak etc for as long as we have labels and names for such things.

As long as we think it's okay to think like this, we will continue to pass on the same bile and blind prejudice to our offspring, who will in turn take the language of hatred into the schools. And so it goes on.

And what do the parents say when their kids get expelled? "It's political correctness gone mad."

Well, no it's not actually. Political correctness is an altogether different animal (and is yet another example of how our American cousins continue to influence our culture, and not always in a welcome way). What we're talking about here is something a lot simpler: it's called facism, and we fought a war against it about 60 years ago. So, if you don't like our country's stance on racism, get out of the country and don't come back.

The whole issue of immigration is a curious one, though. America seems to me an essentially more racist country than ours, yet without immigration none of us would be here now. The media tells us it's such a big problem, yet I can see no evidence of this; no overcrowding, no undue pressure on the infrastructure, no change in the way my children are schooled. But people like to believe what they read, and if what they read is bad news, then all to the better.

I do wonder what experience these complainants have of the world in which we live, though. They bemoan the fact, for instance, that there are now Polish food shops in our country and Polish newspapers on sale. Well, I live across the water from the greatest city in the world - Liverpool in case you didn't know - and they have a thriving ethnic community who have, since time immemorial, had their own shops. As for newspapers in a foreign language, every European city and town I've ever visited has British newspapers on their newstands (and do I even need to speak of the ex-pat invasion of Spain, which boasts more than its fair share of faux British pubs and shops?).

I know I have drifted somewhat from the issue of school but I think it's the duty of every right-minded individual to speak out against the hate and ignorance and keep lighting these candles in the dark. Because, god knows, it's getting awfully dark around here lately.

Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim (1967 )

2010-09-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Dead What?

2010-08-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to keep this blog updated on a weekly basis (he said, confidently) as there's quite a lot going on at the moment that I'd like to write about. One of my all-consuming passions is music (I think that's pretty obvious, even to the people who don't know me) and one of the ways that manifests itself is through the writing and recording I do with The Dead Fingers.

To begin with, a potted history of the band...

The origins of the group currently labouring under the moniker of The Dead Fingers are beyond my recall. Formed by childhood friends, Dickford Blues (as they were known then), were a nucleus of Mike, Colin and Jon but there was also a host of guest players who came and went over the years. By the time I came onboard, the band had been playing for quite a while. As I sit writing this, 24 years later, I can't actually remember why I joined Dickford Blues; I couldn't sing, I couldn't play an instrument...maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever the reason, I ended up joining in with the writing, playing and recording and over the next few years, I helped create such minor classics as Dentures At Dawn (a lyric about OAP gang warfare), Deep Inside The Jungle (the tragic tale of a missionary caught by ravenous cannibals whilst sailing up The Amazon) and Killer Klowns From Outer Space (about...well, you work it out).

The songs were quirky and irreverent but always betrayed a strong sensibility of melody and harmony, thanks largely to the arranging skills of Mike and Jon.

Over time, the lineup continued to change, as our personal lives and commitments prevented Dickford Blues from being our main priority but about two years ago, we got back together again with a renewed focus and determination. And we haven't looked back since.

Oh, and we changed the name, too. I always hated the name Dickford Blues but we could never come up with an alternative. Finally, we took the name The Dead Fingers from a short-lived venture that I was involved with just before I started my night-job as a swing singer. When that broke up, I was left with the name and now it's found a new home with this group.

We are not a gigging band - none of our material has ever been heard beyond ourselves and close family and friends - but we enjoy what we do and are totally dedicated to the band unit. Occasionally, the idea of playing a show raises its head. For five minutes we entertain the idea as a serious prospect, and then it gets forgotten about and we carry on with the writing and recording. In truth, I don't believe we ever will perform 'live' but I'm happy to be doing what we're doing as it is.

The Dead Fingers are Colin on drums, Mike on guitars and keyboards, Jon on bass, Korg and ukelele and me on vocals (turned out I could do something after all).

We're currently working on material for three albums - Zombi, Too Cold To Rock 'n' Roll and Fugitive In The House Of Love - and expect to be finished mixing and producing sometime around Spring...2026.

As we meet every week to play, write and record, I'm going to update regularly on our crazy rock and roll lifestyle: the drama, the tears, the ups, the downs, the jelly sweets and tequila sunrises.

I hope you enjoy...

In Appreciation Of Frank Sinatra

2010-07-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading one of the most insightful books on my all-time hero, Francis Albert Sinatra. The book is called Why Sinatra Matters and it was written by journalist and sometime friend of Mr Sinatra, Pete Hamill. I would suggest that anyone with even a passing interest in Sinatra, and specifically the long-lasting cultural impact of popular music, should seek out this sleek little tome. From Stephen King to The New York Times, it’s been lauded as one of the most important books ever written on this most chronicled of singers.

I’m indebted, then, to Mr Hamill for inspiring my own modest essay on “the entertainer of the 21st century” (although I can’t pretend that comparisons between my work and his don’t end there).

There are so many facets to Frank Sinatra that it seems almost impossible to consider one aspect of the man without also taking into account five or six others. Singer, actor, boozer, bruiser, anonymous benefactor, winner in love, loser in love, political activist, humanitarian, friend for life, enemy for longer, devoted father and natty dresser...you could write a book on each of these elements and still come no closer to understanding the man. So, shying away from any attempt at such dissection (after all, what use is a golden-egg-laying goose when it’s laid out on the slab?), I’ll focus solely on the music.

Sinatra’s singing career began in his hometown of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the thirties. Success with The Hoboken Four led to him being the “boy singer” with the wonderful Harry James and then with the not-so wonderful Tommy Dorsey. He was, officially, the first pop star. You can forget all that nonsense with The Beatles, it all started (and ended) with Sinatra. At a concert at the New York Paramount in 1945, when the theatre erupted with the screams of the hundreds of “bobby soxers” who’d come to see the show, bandleader Benny Goodman remarked, rather poetically: “What the fuck was that?”

For a time, Sinatra had – as the familiar song goes – “the world on a string”. He could do no wrong. No-one, not even Bing, had been this big.

By the end of the fifties, it was all over.

Sinatra’s return to the top, with his staggering performance as Maggio in From Here To Eternity, is the most famous account of the rise and fall and rise again in the history of showbusiness. Back at the top of the tree, there was no way Sinatra was ever going back down again. He remained “top of the list, A number one, king of the hill” until his death in 1998.

His first recording in 1953 was a concept album – the first of many. In The Wee Small Hours was one of several albums of “torch songs” (Sinatra always considered himself a “saloon singer”, never happiest than when singing songs of unrequited love to a small crowd of aficionados’, preferably in a bar). With this album Sinatra single-handedly reinvented himself. His voice was mature now, a rich baritone, filled with a knowing sadness. It was clear that when he sang Mood Indigo or Hoagy Carmichael’s I Get Along Without You Very Well, that he had been there; he had known love and he had known what it was like to lose love.

Perhaps that’s why Sinatra saw himself as the quintessential balladeer; a self-declared manic depressive, he felt the ache of lost love perhaps more acutely than other singers. Matt Munro might have been a technically better vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald may have had the kind of chops that would make any self respecting singer quietly unplug his amp and put his microphone back in the box but it was the intimacy with which Sinatra sang. He “talked” the lyric; when he sang those quiet songs, you really felt like he was singing them to you, confiding in you the listener as though he were your big brother. For many of us, that’s exactly what he was.

But Sinatra could swing, too. Man, could he swing! Come Fly With Me, The Best Is Yet To Come, You Make Me Feel So Young, That’s Life, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Fly Me To The Moon...he practically wrote the book. He was possessed of a vocal style that was sometimes scary (listen to him sing Ol’ Man River and you’ll find yourself thinking: “Take a breath, man, take a breath!”), sometimes pre-empting the beat, sometimes gliding over it and often finding a new beat within the existing groove. Quincy Jones said it best: “Frank’s greatness – besides immaculate storytelling, drama and elocution – was that he phrased like Lester Young. He thought and sang like a horn.”

Sinatra’s career endured through six decades. It would never have lasted that long if he didn’t care about his art. When he’d exhausted the songbooks of Gershwin, Porter and Berlin, when he’d had the best of Sammy Cahn, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen and all those other cats, he turned to the likes of Simon and Garfunkel (his whimsical take on Mrs Robinson is a joy – and you can make what you will about his references to his “bird”) and The Beatles (his versions of Yesterday and Something are tremendously respectful and touching, showing a real appreciation for the lyric); after he’d worked with Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Gordon Jenkins, he made albums with Don Costa, Quincy Jones and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

He tried to leave us, more than once.

At the end of the sixties, Sinatra recorded his most acclaimed concept album. Watertown. Here’s a nice précis of the record by AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine:

Watertown is Frank Sinatra's most ambitious concept album, as well as his most difficult record. Not only does it tell a full-fledged story, it is his most explicit attempt at rock-oriented pop. Since the main composer of Watertown is Bob Gaudio, the author of the Four Seasons' hits "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," "Walk Like a Man," and "Big Girls Don't Cry," that doesn't come as a surprise. With Jake Holmes, Gaudio created a song cycle concerning a middle-aged, small-town man whose wife had left him with the kids. Constructed as a series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies, the culminating effect of the songs is an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is a loneliness without much hope or romance — it is the sound of a broken man. Producer Charles Calello arranged musical backdrops that conveyed the despair of the lyrics. Weaving together prominent electric guitars, keyboards, drum kits, and light strings, Calello uses pop/rock instrumentations and production techniques, but that doesn't prevent Sinatra from warming to the material. In fact, he turns in a wonderful performance, drawing out every emotion from the lyrics, giving the album's character depth.

It didn’t sell. Disappointed with its sales of only 30,000 and its chart placing of 101, Sinatra scrapped the planned tv special that was to focus on the album; he took it as a sign: he longer fit with the times. On June 13 1971, at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, Frank Sinatra performed his final concert. Famously, he ended the show with one of his most celebrated ballads: Angel Eyes.

‘Scuse me while I disappear.

And then he did.

In 1973, he came back. When asked why, he said, with typical understatement: “I just figured I’d do some work. No fun trying to hit a golf ball at eight at night.”

The real reason he came back, though, was because the world needs Sinatra. It’s as simple as that. A firm hand in an otherwise uncertain world is how he has been described. Or, in the words of his pal Dean Martin: “It’s Frank’s world, we just live in it.”

It’s still Frank’s world. When he died in 1998, a typically buoyant BB King said we shouldn’t feel sad, we should be happy for all the music that he left behind. And the music will live on forever, so Frank Sinatra will always be around. As long as people keep falling in and out of love, Frank Sinatra will always be around.

It was Tony Bennett who said, when told of Sinatra’s death, that he was reminded of the story of the writer John O’Hara, who, when told that George Gershwin had died, said: “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

He’ll always be around.

Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim

2010-06-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

By 1967, Frank Sinatra had been recording and performing for 32 years. Just pause and consider that number for a second: 32 years. And now consider this, he was only halfway through his career by this point.

Now, of the few performers of popular song who have managed a career that has lasted over 30 years, I can think of fewer still who have stayed relevant and ahead of the game. More likely, they trade on past glories, giving up on recording new material and instead becoming lumbering cabaret acts, performing to ever diminishing returns.

So then, it's quite astonishing that Frank Sinatra, who had already survived two musical upheavals by this point - Elvis Presley and The Beatles - was still able to surprise his audience and confound his critics with his latest release.

Forming his own record label, Reprise, had allowed Frank to make any kind of album he wanted and to work with whomever he wanted. By the late sixties, he had worked with genius arrangers such as Don Costa, Neil Hefti and Quincy Jones. The most startling collaboration, though, was just around the corner.

The Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim had been instrumental in creating an exciting new musical style: bossa nova. A talented composer, singer, guitarist, songwriter and arranger, he was forty when he got the call to work with Frank Sinatra (who was 52 at this point).

The album was to be almost exclusively original compositions by Jobim. In addition were three standards: I Concentrate On You, Change Partners and Baubles, Bangles and Beads. These three were all adapted to the bossa nova style, creating one of the most consistent and rewarding listening experiences in Sinatra's repetoire.

I cannot stress how much of a revelation this album is, not only because it shows just how hip Frank Sinatra was to embrace new musical trends, but also in the vocal techniques that were on display in his delivery. Rarely has Sinatra sang with such subtlety, almost underplaying the lines; if his chops as a jazz singer were ever in doubt, then one listen to this album puts that doubt to rest.

In 1970, the two got together again for a follow-up, to be titled Sinatra-Jobim. It was released briefly on eight-track but then pulled due to concerns over its sales potential. Several of the recordings made it to the Sinatra And Company album but it wasn't until this year that the complete sessions were released in their entirety.

For me, this is the only way to listen to this marvellous collaboration, as one complete, unexpurgated session. It's a shame the two never worked again but Frank Sinatra would continue to pay homage to "Tom" Jobim in concert over the years and many of the songs that they recorded would be staples in Sinatra's set.

As a fan, it's probably my second favourite pairing in Sinatra's career, after the albums that he recorded with Count Basie.

Soundtrack Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2010-03-19T05:18:00.001-07:00

Hello again, it's me, The Central Scrutiniser...no it's not, it's still me, your favourite out-of-work swing singer. Whilst I continue to fill in time between gigs (and believe me, I've got a lot of time at the moment) I thought I'd start an infrequent review section of some of my favourite music. I'll be covering all the stuff I love - Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Genesis, Alice Cooper etc - at some point or other, when the mood takes me. I thought I'd start, though, with a review of an album that was given to me in the last day or two. Something very special.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is, for me, the definitive horror film. There's really nothing out there that can touch it in my opinion and its power to shock, disturb and just plain terrify is still very much in evidence today. At some point I'll get round to posting my review of the film but for now I just want to concentrate on the score.

To begin with, let me briefly touch on how I got hold of the soundtrack. There is no existing official soundtrack for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, let me make that clear (just before I get lots of "looked but could not find" emails). This is simply because an isolated score was not recorded for the movie. But the circles that I hang around in ensure that, at some point or other, I always get what I'm after, however obscure (by the way, you don't want to hang around in the circles that I do. I mix with the kinds of people that your teachers at school warned you about). And so it was that, in casual conversation with a fellow horrorhound, I happened to mention my ongoing search for the soundtrack, to which he said: "Oh, this?" and he gave it to me. Just like that. Sometimes life can be filled with random acts of kindness and generosity, and this just happened to be one of those times. Other times life can be filled with random acts of unnjustifiable meanness and cruelty, let's not ever forget that, so enjoy the good times while they roll, because there's always a big steaming pile of shit around the corner just waiting for you to put your size tens in it.

So, onto the soundtrack. The score for TCM (we'll call the film that from this point on) is a score unlike any other in the horror genre. It doesn't conform to the standard type: there are no tunes here, no themes, and no melodies in the traditional sense, just aural insanity. To achieve this, Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper took an experimental approach to performing the music, combining electrical sounds with real, everyday noises to create a mounting sense of unease and dread.

The opening credits must be one the most celebrated in the genre. A lone cymbal, a scraped tuning fork and heavy reverb set the scene in amazingly effective fashion, before giving way to rumbling industrial noise. Elsewhere in the film, skeletal percussion and farmyard sounds merge with the whirring of generators and white noise to create an aural nightmare.

As the film intensifies, so does the music. The most harrowing scene in the movie - Sally, strapped to a chair, sits at a dinner table where the family are feasting on the remains of her friends - is accompanied by deeply distressing sounds: guttural grunting and snorting, spiralling arpeggios and beneath it all, a menacing low drone; it's as unlistenable as the scene is unwatchable.

The original music is augmented by the work of local Texan artists to create a soundscape unrivalled in its verisimilitude. Banal tracks like Fool For A Blonde and Daddy's Sick Again take on a sinister edge in their new context. The overall effect is of being trapped inside the baddest of bad dreams and the feeling remains long after the credits have ended.

Stefan The Story So Far Part Five

2010-03-18T14:38:00.001-07:00

Dear reader, we have reached the point where I feel I can finally start to reveal all. I think we know each other now, you and I, and in this moment great truths can be told. You see, I am a very open person; I don't mind exposing facts that some people might feel more inclined to leave in the closet. I am honest to the point of embarrassment, painfully honest, and it has cost me over the years. I have lost many friends because I have been too quick to say what I think. But, the fact is, most people are a waste of space anyway. It's true, and you know it's true: people are schmucks and even the ones who you think are your closest friends will let you down in the end. Facebook tells me that I have over 200 friends. No I don't. 200 fucking hangers on is what I've got. In reality, I could count the number of friends I have on the fingers of one hand. And I only have four fingers. It's true. I lost one in a bar fight 14 years ago. It's a bit embarrassing really because I used to have L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on my hand. Now I have L-O-V-E and H-A-T.

There's something to consider: people who tattoo words on themselves. Especially names. Parents get the names of their kids tattooed on their neck. What the fuck is that all about? How fucking forgetful are these knuckle-draggers that they need the names of their children written all over their rancid, pimply torsos? Fact is, they're the only words these dickheads are likely to read in their whole sad lives. Not unless Jordan's latest autobiography counts. And it doesn't.

But I was going to tell you something, wasn't I? I was going to throw the doors wide open on my secret life, tell you great and terrible truths that would give you cause, when you see me on the street, to say: "Aww, poor fucker." and clutch me to your heaving bosom. Not that many women have ever felt inclined to clutch me to their heaving bosom, I have to say. Women want to be friends, remember? They don't want me anywhere near their tits.

You see, David Peltzer wrote A Child Called It and single-handedly ushered in a whole new genre of writing. You can't move now for books with titles like Daddy's Little Secret, Nobody's Child and Don't Tell Mummy. Seems everyone has got a childhood tale of woe to tell. Everyone, that is, except Peter Kay, that grinning fool with only three jokes to his name. Who'd have thought you could make a career talking about something that you dunk in spaghetti bolognese? Read his book, it's a celebration of how sunny and carefree his childhood days were. It's possibly the dullest, most appallingly written piece of shit I've ever read. Which is why I never got past the first chapter (and no, I didn't buy it; it was someone else's copy. They were going to lend it to me so I checked out the first chapter, put it back on the shelf and said "No thanks, I'm halfway through a Jeffrey Archer that I just have to finish or I'll never forgive myself").

David Peltzer, then, and the six or seven books he's written about how awful it is being a multi-millionaire and all because his mother wouldn't feed him. His brother's written a book as well. It's called Me, Too or Don't Forget, I Had It Pretty Bad As Well. There's only the dog left now who hasn't written a book. It'll probably be called David's A Bastard, He Ate All My Food. Funny thing is, I'm not even making this up; David Peltzer really has written something like six or seven books. With each book he's scrabbling around in his memory to try and come up with more traumatic stuff that happened to him. Why didn't he put it all in one book, and then give us a bit of peace? And how come it took three or four books before his brother realised that he had it bad too? Now, someone of you may be reading this and saying "Aww, c'mon, Stefan, I've read those books, his mother was terrible" well, she may well have been, and I have every sympathy for the rich bastard, but what the fuck are you doing reading those books? What possible entertainment can you get from reading about somebody else's misery? What kind of sick, voyeuristic fuck are you anyway? You want horror? Read a Stephen King or a James Herbert, at least that stuff's not real.

So, the time has come for me to reveal my great childhood trauma. Are you ready for this? I do hope so. You see, when I was a kid my mother used to dress me in unfashionable clothes.

Ten years older than all the other mums whose kids went to the same school, my mum's taste in what looked good on little boys was perhaps a little out of step with everyone else's. The shops that she bought my clothes from weren't the same as the shops other mums went to. I remember one shop she used to take me to. It was called Clothes...For The Child You Never Wanted In The First Place. It was across the road from Clothes, Guaranteed Never To Go Out Of Fashion...Because They Were Never In Fashion To Begin With.

One spectacularly bad piece of clothing was a brown coudroy suit - I was six for fuck's sake; how many six year olds go round wearing a frigging suit? And a bow-tie on elastic, which the other kids took great pleasure in pulling forward and letting fly back to smack into my startled six year old face. She'd also found a nice line in jumpers that had been knitted fromm yak's pubic hair; they were so goddamn itchy it looked like I had St Vitus' Dance. If that wasn't bad enough I was saddled with ugly national health glasses, a shock of ginger hair and so many freckles it looked like I'd been sunbathing under a sieve.

You'll never know how unfashionable clothes can ostricize you from the "in crowd" unless you've worn them. At school discos I would stand near the wall, hoping someone, anyone, would ask me to dance. Never happened. Never had a girlfriend through all of my school years (breaks the heart, doesn't it?)...never had a friend of any description in fact. Not even the dog would be seen out with me, not when I was wearing my coudroy suit.

See, the problem is, when you let your mother choose your clothes as a kid, you tend to let them continue to choose your clothes right into your teenage years and beyond. So the coudroy suit and yak hair jumpers gave way to beige sweaters with leather patches on the shoulders (the purpose of which escapes me completely) and shirts made by such famous designers as (get this for a name) Barry Dizley. Whilst everyone else was wearing Farah and LaCoste, I had Barry frigging Dizley. No wonder I didn't get shagged until I was 32.

My mum's dead now; she died three years ago. And the shops she bought my clothes from have all closed down - hardly fucking surprising, really. I miss her...and in a perverse way, I miss the stuff she used to dress me in. It's worth noting, before I go, that she herself was always immaculately turned out. Which can only make me think that the shirts, the suits, the bow-ties and the jumpers were all just one big joke at my expense. And a very funny joke at that, as any girl who snubbed me at Hillside Primary School, Hillside Middle School, Rideway High School and Birkenhead Sixth Form College would happily testify to.

It's Only Rock And Roll (but I know what I like)

2010-03-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Genesis on (finally) being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame today. It seems that the band are now getting the plaudits they've been owed for so long and, as a fan since my teenage years, I'm very pleased for them.

Genesis are a rare breed: a band who came out of the progressive rock movement of the seventies, surviving the loss of band members and the ever-shifting music scene to emerge as one of the biggest bands of the last century. On the way, they launched no less than four successful solo careers and were pioneers of stage and lighting design in their increasingly elaborate stage shows. Their tours were massive sell-out affairs across the globe (the final European show of their 2007 Turn It On Again tour was performed in front of over 250, 000 fans in the Circo Massimo) and they confounded sceptics by being the only progressive band to successfully re-invent themselves as a leaner, fitter, hit-making machine in the eighties, embracing the MTV age without ever compromising their musical integrity.

They were inducted by Trey Anastasio of Phish (no, I've no idea who they are either) who was unstinting in his praise, calling the band "rebellious, restless and constantly striving for something more".

"Every musical rule and boundary was questioned and broken," he said. "It's impossible to overstate what impact this band and musical philosophy had on me as a young musician. I'm forever in their debt."

Well done, lads, you deserve it.

A Day In The Life

2010-03-13T08:43:00.001-08:00

Whilst you all eagerly anticipate the next chapter in my life story, I thought I'd tell you about my day today.

As it's Mother's Day tomorrow (and I've known a lot of mothers in my time), I took my dad up to the grave to put some fresh flowers down. Grave-visiting isn't really my thing (my mum's still alive in my heart and I can talk to her each day if I want; I don't need to go to her grave to remember her or to tell her how much I miss her) but some people take a great deal of solace from doing it. Cemeteries are strange little places and, being me, I find them to be quite funny, too. All those gravestones with "Sleeping" written on them...imagine those poor fuckers waking up to find themselves in a pine box. When I shed this mortal coil I want a very simple inscription on my tombstone: "If you can read this, you're standing too close."

Leaving Landican behind, I headed into Birkenhead to browse their high-class shops - Poundland, Sayers, Iceland, Superdrug...places like that.

The girls of Birkenhead have discovered lately that smoking Lambert And Butler all over your child whilst it sits dumbly in its pram, its stubby little fingers wrapped around a sausage roll, is actually very good for the wee nipper. And, believe me, they've wasted no time at all in putting this theory to the test.

Now, this might look like so much inverted snobbery, given that I originally came from Birkenhead and now live in a very big house far away from where I was brought up, with a nice big wrought iron gate at the top of my drive, and a big spiked fence on which we regularly impale the poor folk as a warning against those who stray too close. The thing is, as I was born in Birkenhead I feel I can say exactly what I please about the place. Now, if you were to say something bad about the town - presuming that you, Dear Reader, are from some place other than Birkenhead - I would be the first person to...agree with you.

You see, Birkenhead is what it is - a shit-hole - and any attempts at hiding the fact have always failed. For instance, some years ago, Birkenhead received some lottery funding to clean its act up. Every weekday lunchtime, a string quartet would set up in Hamilton Square, neath the shade of The Cenotaph, and play baroque music. It was a good idea (although baroque is not really my thing) and for a short period it was something of a success; office workers would flock to the square and eat their butties to the sounds of Handel, Bach and Schultz. But then, some bright spark came up with the idea of placing a drop-in centre on the corner of the square, right next to the jobcentre, which is in turn within spitting distance of the probation centre. And that was the end of the string quartet. No more Handel in the square; it was now back to syringes in the bushes.

Still, some proprietors soldier on in the face of such depravity, and more power to their albow for doing so. The Weatherspoons and The Capitol restaurant on Argyle Street, for instance, are fine places to drink and eat, respectively, and Hornblowers on Market Street is a fine boozer, too. If you want a bite to eat at then Lunch And Judy is spot-on, as is Off The Square (and I swear by the breakfast binlids from the little red shop on Market Street). And Gallagher's is a very decent barber's (lots of Frank Sinatra pictures on the walls). Birkenhead Market has been in business since 1974 and is home to Ward's - a damn fine fishmonger (how do you "mong" a fish, by the way?) - as well as hundreds of other stalls (it might not be as good as St John's or Great Homer Street market but it's nae bad all the same). And if you want to sit down with a good book and a coffee, there's Waterstones.

But best of all, Birkenhead has one of the best roads in the country. Borough Road. It leads through the town, right up to the Queensway Tunnel, which takes you under the River Mersey and right into Liverpool City Centre. Marvellous.

Images From The Past Couple Of Years

2010-02-22T14:13:00.000-08:00

One of this blog's readers asked me the other day to "make it bigger". I presume she meant the blog because no woman before has ever asked me to make anything bigger. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what she meant but, in the interest of simply adding more stuff to this page, then I'm happy to oblige.

Here are some images taken at a handful of gigs I've performed these past two years. A lot of photos get taken at my gigs, and some filming too, and it's next to impossible to track this stuff down. Not that I mind people taking pictures, of course (I mean, if your house alarm is broken, what are you going to use to keep the burglars away?), it would just be nice to get hold of the photos so that I can post them on sites like this.

Of course, the odd photo does sometimes come my way, so here are a few of my favourites.

Taken after a gig last year. I have no idea who the woman is but she's been living in my house for the past eleven years.

Taken at a birthday party, hence all the paraphenalia on the stage.

Performing at The British Legion in 2007. I thought the shaven head was a good look for me back then.

During a break at a gig at The Hooton in Eastham. Such a small pub, I had to perform in front of the fireplace. We packed the place out that night and it remains one of the best gigs I've played.

Well, that's all for the pics for now. If you have a photo or a video from any of the shows, then send it to me and it might end up on this site.

Stefan The Story So Far Part Four

2010-02-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

I was an unremarkable kid. Kind of goofy, really. Ginger hair, freckles and bad eyesight. Skinny, too; so skinny my eyes were single file. Between those two and my belly button, my parents thought I was a clarinet. All in all, I was not much of a catch for the girls of Birkenhead.

That's the way it is, folk. Some of us hit the ground running and some of us are late developers. I think I developed round about last year.

On the way to becoming what I am (and you can send your opinions on exactly what you think I am on a postcard), I've had a lot of fun inventing and re-inventing myself, from nerdy, shy kid to long-haired hippy type complete with earring and goatee beard (the photos are out there, believe me), from comedian to actor to singer, from free-wheeling bachelor to devoted family man, it's been a gas.

And I'm not done yet; I still have a burning ambition to perfect my cat-juggling skills so keep watching.

Many people come to me and they say: "Hey, you!" That's right, that's exactly what they do say, they say: "Hey, you!" Except, of course, in Birkenhead, where people say: "Hey you, shit-head." But wherever I go, it is true, people say: "Hey, you!"

Of course, they don't just say "Hey, you!" and then walk on by, there's a bit more to it than that. After they've said "Hey, you!" and got my undivided attention, they say: "Why do you always sing that swing stuff? Why don't you sing something different for a change? Why don't you diversify?"

The question, when it's asked, never fails to bemuse me (I mean, I perform in a tuxedo and my show is billed as a celebration of the music of The Rat Pack - what the hell do you think you're going to get? A medley of Take That songs?). And, I have to say, if you could sing that stuff, wouldn't you do it too?

If you don't like swing, then you don't like ice cream. And furthermore, if you don't like swing, then I don't want to know you.

Thankfully, the people who've been to the shows the last couple of years do like swing. Just as well, really, because when you come to see me that's all you're going to get.

Why swing, though? Surely it's had its day? And isn't it music for old people? Well, the continued success of artists like Michael Buble and Jamie Callum have proven that swing music connects with every generation; these tunes are timeless. And let's not forget, what do the producers of The X Factor do when they want to add a touch of class to their (eternally classless) show? They get their acts to sing swing. And as for singing songs for "old people", I've increasingly found, through my years of performing, that it's the old folk who are so seldom catered for by nightclub acts. Luckily, the stuff I sing crosses the age barriers (heck, even my kids know the words to most of these songs).

I will say, though, that there is no greater thrill than coming offstage and being greeted by Sinatra fans who tell me how much they loved the show. And Dean fans, too. And Sammy fans. It's those people who I look for in the crowd, the aficionados. I value their opinion above all others, because they know when it's right. Sure, it's great when people cheer for Mack The Knife, or get up and dance to New York New York; it's a tremendous feeling knowing that I'm singing something that really lifts them. But if I sing a song that's not so well known, like The Best Is Yet To Come or The Birth Of The Blues, and I see someone sat in the audience, singing along to every word, then that's the person I'm singing for.

And no such person would ever be so crass as to say: "Hey, you! Why don't you sing something different for a change?" Because they know, just as well as I do, that these really are the only songs worth singing.

Stefan The Story So Far - A Comedy Interlude

2010-02-10T12:44:00.000-08:00

I grew up in the seventies. The decade of great music, bad clothes and crumbly white dog crap. So much white dog crap; where did it all come from? And where's it gone? For ten years, crumbly white dog crap as far as the eye could see. Come the eighties, still a fair bit of it about but you could already see a steady decline. By the nineties...fuck all, not a solitary crumb. Personally, I blame it on cocaine. Remember that great song by Grandmaster Flash? White Lines. Very big in the eighties. Work it out: big increase in the use of Columbian marching powder, and meanwhile crumbly white dog crap is disappearing from the streets...

Next time some pusher comes up to you and offers you some "good shit", think twice before you stick it up your nose, that's all I'm saying.

But I was a kid of the seventies and it was okay. We had Star Wars, we had real summers, we had sweets that were full of E numbers and we didn't give a shit. We had a game back then called The Farmer Wants A Wife. Basically, a boy gets picked to be the farmer, he stands surrounded by a circle of kids, picks a wife (there was no question of him picking the young farmhand - we weren't so politically correct back then) and then they pick a couple of kids, a cow, maybe a hen, sheep, horse...you know the kind of thing. Every time we played, a different boy was the farmer. Week after week, I stood in hope of being that boy; just the idea of being up there, in that annointed spot, and picking a girl to be my wife. Would she let me cop a feel as we stood there? You think about these things when you're seven years old.

Anyway, it never happened; I was never picked to be the farmer. Nor was I ever chosen as one of the kids. The cow? Nope. Hen? Nadda. Sheep? Horse? No, neither of them. Wasn't even considered as the family dog. One of the teachers suggested I be the farmhand...I still make calls to Childline over that.

Never the farmer. I still blame that childhood trauma for all the bad luck I had with girls when I was growing up. Truly, I was no good with women. I used to keep meeting girls who "just wanted to be friends" - man, that used to drive me insane. You'd meet these girls, buy them a drink, make them laugh, then you'd make your move (it's a bit like calculating when you should jump the skipping rope). Always ended in disaster. You'd move in, shark-like, and get the polite rebuff: "Oh, Stefan, you are funny, but I only want you as a friend." Well, be a pal and give me a blowjob then! That's what a true friend would do.

Just friends. Man. Forty female friends and not one whore amongst them.

I live a luckless life, though. True, I found a woman in the end but I'm convinced she's cheating on me. I got a taxi the other night and I asked the driver to take me to where the action is. He took me to my house.

We celebrated our anniversary the other month. I raised a toast "To the best woman I ever had" and the waiter joined me.

During sex, she always wants to talk to me. You ever get that? "Talk to me." As if you haven't got enough to concentrate on, doing the seven times table in your head just so you don't come too soon. Yeah, talk to me during sex. The other night she called me from a hotel.

She met me at the door the other night wearing sexy underwear. Only trouble was she was coming home.

She's a lousy cook, though. Terrible cook. She made my son alphabet soup the other day, he spelled out "help".

I left some dental floss in the kitchen the other day. Went in the next morning, the cockroaches had hung themselves.

I got so fed up with my life I thought I'd have an affair. I'm not proud but sometimes you feel driven to these things. So, I'm making love to this girl and she starts crying. I said to her "Will you hate yourself in the morning?" She said "No, I hate myself now."

I like dating ugly girls, though, they try harder. I once dated a girl so ugly even the tide wouldn't take her out. So ugly, when she sucks a lemon the lemon pulls a face. She was so ugly, I took her on a trip to New York, we went to the top of the Empire State Building and planes started to attack her.

To go back to my childhood, though, I didn't really have a happy childhood. My parents didn't like me very much. My bath toys were a toaster and a hairdryer.

My mum never even breastfed me. She told me she only liked me as a friend.

My dad carries around the photograph of the kid that came with the wallet.

I remember one time I got lost. I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said "Do you think we'll ever find them?" He said "I don't know. There are so many places they can hide."

All these years later I'm still trying to come to terms with all the stuff that's happened to me. I see a psychiatrist now. I told him "I think everyone hates me." He said "Don't be ridiculous. Everyone hasn't met you yet."

So I drink now. I drink a lot, I don't mind saying that. I gave my doctor a sample the other day and there was an olive in it.

I went to a bar the other night. The barman said "What would you like?" I said "Surprise me." So he showed me a picture of my wife naked.

You have to feel sorry for people who don't drink, though. Just think about it; when they wake up in the morning that's the best they're going to feel all day.

Salut, cent'anni, thank you and goodnight.

Stefan The Story So Far Part Three

2010-02-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

Fired.

I'd never been fired before. What a unique experience. And what a gift.

I had been working at Capital Bank for about three months. Hopelessly miscast in the role of selling loans to the poor bastards who these places bleed dry until they're pushing up the proverbial daisies.

Sometimes you find yourself in a place in life and you have no idea how you got there. No idea at all. And it's only when you're out of that situation that you look back and say "How the fuck did that happen?" It's happened to me on a handful of occasions; alarmingly, it's not been when I've been taking drugs.

Well, this was indeed one of those times. I have no idea how I got there, or what I thought I was doing there, but here I was. Now how in the name of Christ was I going to get out?

As it turned out, all I had to do was be myself.

Walking through Birkenhead late that afternoon, I saw my reflection in a shop window. Shirt and tie, charcoal suit. God, I looked dull. Even my hair, which when allowed to be itself is a flowing mane of auburn curls, was distressingly short and uninteresting.

As it turned out, the window that I was looking into belonged to a shop called Beyond. This shop sells all sorts of exotic stuff: pipes, bongs, jewellery. And they also do piercings there; practically anything you want pierced, they can do it.

Without hesitation, I shot inside. When I came out, I had one pierced tit. Two weeks later, I was back in to get the other one done. A small act of rebellion, maybe, but you need to do these things every once in a while, to make yourself feel alive. Never be one of "them" - god knows there's enough of them, the world doesn't need anymore - always be one of "us"; we may be smaller in number, but god knows we're alive.

I've always been of the opinion that there is no "me", just a series of inventions. And some of those inventions have worked better than others. It's important, though, to keep re-inventing, to stay on top of things, to try out new things; don't just stick to the same road all your life, take detours, you never know where you might end up. And you might like it when you get there.

And so it was that this latest version of me, with hoops hanging from his nipples, found a new road ahead of him. And, whaddya know, I'd finally found someone to walk it with me.

This story has been notably light on the subject of women so far. This is not to say that there have not been women in my life - my mum (bless her) was a woman and I owe everything I am to her; my sister is a woman (see, Carla, I told you you'd get a mention!) - but of those who have passed through, few of them are worth mentioning; indeed I can't think of a single ex girlfriend who I could name with any affection (that's the thing with exes, there's often a very good reason why they are exes). However, there sometimes comes a time when the right one comes along, and you have to make your move or you'll lose her.

So it was, in 1999, that the right one came along. We're still together - just! - and as we move through life, it can sometimes seem that there are more downs than ups. But if you can survive the lows, holding on together, weathering the storm, then the highs, when they eventually come along, are so much sweeter.

Anyway, enough of the serious shit (I had to pause to mention the wife or you'd think I'm some sad lonely loser who just sits on the internet all day. As it is, I'm a sad married loser who sits on the internet all day.) let's get back to the story.

I was looking for a job and then I found a job,
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

Morrissey got it so right there. As someone who has always felt driven by his creative muse, though, it's always been a bitter pill to swallow that being an "artist" is all well and good but it doesn't pay the bills.

In 1999, then, my final paycheck from Capital bank well and truly spent, I found myself looking for work again. This time, I had a gameplan: find some mundane job that pays enough for me to save up to buy myself a PA so I could then hit the road as a swing singer. The comedy and acting behind me now, I'd played a gig late in 1998 where I'd decided to sing a few songs in tribute to Frank Sinatra who'd died that year. The audience response really threw me: they actually enjoyed it; they cheered, they applauded...man, this was so much better than cracking jokes. And for once, I felt totally comfortable on the stage. This was it, then, a singer's life for me.

As I said earlier, 1999 was also the year that I met Debbie. Falling in love can be such a distraction, and consequently I took my eye off the prize for a while...well, for eight years really. Not that those eight years were wasted (although it's fair to say that Debbie and I were wasted for most of them): we moved in together, got married, bought a bigger house, had a couple of kids. And now we live the boring surburban life...and it sucks.

There is a life beyond the horizon, but so few of us bother to look that far. We take the job, we work for the man, we buy the house, have the kids, we struggle on and we make do. And we stop dreaming.

Stefan The Story So Far Part Two

2010-02-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

"Livesey"!

"Yes, sir?"

"Get out!"

"But I haven't even sat down, sir."

"I don't care, just get out!"

"But...but...I haven't even done anything."

"But you're thinking about it, I can tell."

And so went my days at Ridgeway High School, day in day out, pretty much, for five sodding years.

It's not that I was a destructive influence, at least not as I saw it. I mean, there were worse than me, much worse, and they're probably in jail somewhere as I write this. I think my school reports say it all, though, with the deathless phrase: "Were Stefan not always seeking to be the centre of attention, he would achieve a lot." Indeed, the only teacher who ever saw any potential in me has now passed on (Annie Cooper Jones, bless your heart).

It was at secondary school that I discovered a talent for comedy. I'd learn gags and then break everyone up with them during lessons, or I'd do impressions of the teachers or famous people, eventually creating a kind of comedy routine that would run and run. It's quite a thrill to crack people up with humour; it's the best thing you can do to a person without having to remove your clothes, in fact (although in my case, I've always got bigger laughs when I've stripped off).

I must debunk a popular myth, though, at this point. And that is that women love a man with a sense of humour. Every time women are asked what they look for in a man, nine times out of ten they always say "good sense of humour". Bullshit. When have you ever been in a nightclub and heard one woman say to the other "Look at the sense of humour on him"? And so it was that, while my spot-on impersonations (you should hear my Billy Connolly, it's killer) and jokes always went down well with the lads, they did not endear me to the fairer sex. So, if you're a funny bloke and you're reading this, if you're out one night hoping to get laid, do yourself a favour and shut the fuck up; women might laugh at your jokes, but they always end up going home with your quiet mate, the one who makes no effort at all but just smiles occasionally.

At school, even though I was the funny guy (and, man, even if it never got me a girlfriend, it sure stopped me from getting a slap from the school hard knock; every king needs his jester, after all) there was never any inkling that I might make a living from it.

Fast forward, then, to 1994. I'm in a bar - The Argyle in Birkenhead, to be precise; like most haunts from my youth, it's now no longer there - interviewing a band for a local newspaper. The band is Mixie's Men (unlike the pub, the band are still going). During the interview, I end up talking myself into doing a gig with the band the following week. The Halfway House in Prenton (surprisingly, a bar that is still there and still going strong) was to be the site of my first ever gig (having fallen ill on the day I was to be a pageboy at the school nativity back in 1978) - I tell you that just in case anyone wants to put a plaque up when I'm dead.

It was to be the beginning of three solid years of performing stand-up comedy. Three very up-and-down years which saw some great gigs, some terrible gigs, and a lot of mediocre gigs. During this time I met a lot of funny people, some of whom ended up becoming very famous indeed (too famous to need a credit from me here). I also had a year long flirtation with acting, which saw me working with the wonderful Elsie Kelly (who of course now appears in Benidorm playing Johnny Vegas's mum). Between 1994 and 1997 I had some fantastic times and met some terrific people, had a lot of laughs and got wasted many, many times. And I learned a lot about stagecraft and performing. I also learned that, funny as I might be, stand-up comedy was not my thing; I just never felt comfortable up there, never felt that this was where I truly belonged. And acting certainly wasn't for me: being up on stage, pretending to be somebody else, saying someone else's lines? No thanks.

How frustrating, for someone who craved attention so much, to find the stage life so unsatisfying. What to do, what to do, what to do?

One Saturday night in 1997, I found myself on stage doing something which would give my life new definition and focus. Finally, I had found what it was I should be doing, something which felt perfectly natural and, more importantly, something which I could actually do well. Really well. People applauded, people cheered.

For more on how I discovered my big break into pornography, read Part Three...

Stefan...The Story So Far Part One

2010-01-31T04:52:00.000-08:00

Part One of a serialised account of the life of the boy singer (well, it's the only way you're ever going to find out anything about me - I don't see a line of biographers standing at my door).

I was born in 1972 in a town called Birkenhead. Now, I have to tell you a little bit about the town in which I was born before I move on. It's known variously as Birkenhell, Birkendead or, by our neighbours in Liverpool, "the other side of the water" (a wonderfully dismissive moniker) and "the one-eyed city" (I've only recently discovered that this refers to Birkenhead constantly having its gimlet eye on everything that goes on in Liverpool - witness the town's recent attempt to jump on the Capital Of Culture bandwagon which Liverpool has been riding, and consider this, Birkenhead doesn't even have its own accent; it nicked that from Liverpool (prompting a lot of Liverpudlians to ruefully observe that Birkonians speak with a better Scouse accent than they do!)).

My parents moved to The Wirral in the late sixties, attracted by the lure of cheaper housing. Being brought up in a family of Liverpudlians, being the only one born on the other side of the water, you live with the constant reminder that you got the shitty end of the deal. Consequently, I've never felt any affiliation with the town in which I was born and have long been acutely aware of the cultural riches that lie across the water. That my two children were both born in Liverpool is no coincidence, rather it was an active attempt to return to the source - and if that makes me sound like a snob then do me a favour, spend a week in Birkenhead and then you'll know what I'm talking about.

Being a kid in a working class environment, living in a pissant town that nobody had heard of, there really wasn't the room for idealistic ambition. And so it was one day in 1986 when the art teacher asked us all what we wanted to do when we left school, I told him I wanted to be a writer and he laughed in my acne-covered face (speaking of acne, I did really suffer as a teenager. So much so, in fact, that I once fell asleep in a library and woke up to find a blind man trying to read my face). With my hopes dashed - by an art teacher of all people - I trod water for the remaining years of my education, wasting a further two years in sixth form college (kids, don't go to college or university, get yourselves into work as soon as you can and then, if you really like classrooms so much, go to night school).

During these "wilderness years" not much happened beyond getting drunk, reading a lot of Stephen King and listening to music. Ahh yes, music...

As soon as I got myself a stereo, music became my mistress. I could not go a day without listening to an album or two (still can't). Somewhere along the way I discovered jazz and many wet Saturday afternoons were spent poring over second hand vinyl records by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Buddy Rich and Art Blakey in Skeleton's Record Exchange. While everyone else was listening to Dire Straits, U2, Iron Maiden and AC/DC, I was at home chilling to albums like Sketches Of Spain and Love Supreme. Back then, I was a frustrated drummer. Frustrated, mainly, because I didn't have a drum kit.

With very little opportunity in the way of expressing myself musically, and convinced that my humble scribblings would never make me the next Stephen King, I would never have believed that one day I would become a singer. But, as I moved through my twenties, an opportunity was to appear that would change my life completely...

Britain's Got Talent

2010-01-31T03:06:00.000-08:00

Well, you now all know that I didn't get through the auditions of Britain's Got Talent. I thought I'd tell you a bit more about my experience of the audition and my thoughts on the whole thing.

Late last year we ("we" being Debbie - the wife - and June - she's the one who designs all the posters and business cards) went to the G-Mex in Manchester (is it still called the G-Mex now? I gave up when the Hammersmith changed its name to Labatts Appolo, to be honest.) for the first round of auditions for Britain's Got Talent (to be called BGT from this point on). Now, first let me state my opinion on the show and tv talent shows in general: I don't like 'em. I think that the best way to learn your trade as to go out and do it; tv talent shows are a shortcut for people who can't be arsed putting the graft in (you know the type, these wankers who show up for the X Factor and tell us "music is my life" and that they've always wanted to be a singer. Well, go and do it then. Get off my tv screen, buy an amp and go to fucking work like the rest of us have to.). So, why did I even bother auditioning for the show? Exposure. That's the only reason. I figured that work has been so sparse lately (and thank you, Labour Government for the smoking ban and allowing the superstores to sell beer at ridiculously small prices; so many pubs now fighting to keep their heads above water because people don't bother going out anymore) if I got even five minutes on a show like BGT then that might be all the publicity I need to see an increase in my workload. I never really thought I'd win (but obviously it would be smashing if I did and many people seemed to think I had what it took to walk away with the prize at the end) but it would be fun to take part.

Whenever I go to Manchester, it's raining. It suits the rain quite well, to be honest. This day was no exception.

We walked from the underground car park and it was easy to spot the auditioners - they tramped up the street with bags of props, their costumes in suit bags slung over their shoulders. I was already kitted out in my tux so I was ready to perform at the drop of a hat.

Once in there, with my audition number on a sticker that wouldn't stick to my jacket (Pierre Cardin didn't make tuxedos with the intention that yellow stickers would be plastered all over them), it was a question of waiting and watching. One fella I spoke to had just finished his audition. It was his third year of coming to the show, he told me. Blimey; wouldn't you just take the hint by then? Anyway, he was jolly nice (his piece had been Will Young's Leave Right Now - a song choice that I hope doesn't turn out to be too prophetic for him). Of the other auditioners, there were (unsurprisingly) no end of Michael Jackson acts about the place, all with the silver glove and the fedora hat (they didn't seem to be doing much, though; maybe they were svaing their moves for the audition) and a slew of dance groups, all wanting to prove how much better they were than Diversity (to be honest they all seemed a bit ropey). Highlight of the afternoon was when some body-popping teenager was all but shown in the door in a dance-off with a vastly superior kid who was so flexible I think he only had about three bones in his body.

After some by-play with the cameras (wave, shout "Manchester's got talent" and pretend you mean it), it was finally time to go and do my stuff.

Waiting to go in, I looked down the line of auditioners and realised I was the oldest one there. Oh dear, was this really wise? The lad sat next to me had a crutch with him. I considered asking if I could borrow it (judges love a sob story) and then my name was called.

It's hard to relax in an audition. It's such an artifical situation. The night before, I'd played to a packed house and felt perfectly relaxed. Standing in a room, with a humourless producer sat opposite me and a girl (a very attractive one at that) pointing a camera at me, is not a comfortable forum for singing. But the boy did his best; I sang That's Life and it sounded alright to me, I hit the notes and amped it up at the end.

I left feeling happy that I'd done it and wished everyone I saw on the way out the very best of luck. Had a smoke with Debbie and we drove home.

Well, here we are now at the end of the January and the second round of auditions has started. But the show will go on without me, because I never did get that call.

Thinking back now, I can't say that I'm glad that I didn't get through but at the same time I'm happy that I can still carry on doing what I'm doing without the people who've really made it big thiking I'd taken a shortcut to fame and fortune (neither of which are a motivator for what I do anyway; I just want to get by doing the things I love).

Back In The Studio

2009-08-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

After a three year break, I'm happy to back writing and recording with The Dead Fingers (previously known as The Harolds, Fudd, Dickford Blues and six or seven other names which escape me right now). We've had more lineup changes than Yes but we're now down to a core lineup of Mike Quayle on guitars, keyboards and vocals, Jonathon "Boo" Potter on basses, keyboards, vocals and whatever new instrument he's bought this week, Colin Bowker on drums and vocals and me, Stefan, on vocals.

We're currently writing and recording material for our new album, Zombi. We've been threatening to write a concept album for years and now it looks like we're finally delivering on our promise. At the risk of sounding smug, it's sounding rather bloody good and contains some of the best songs we've ever written.

At the same time, we're writing some stuff for a "sister" album of stand-alone songs which we hope to have done and dusted around the same time Zombi is completed.

We're three weeks into the the writing now and moving along at a fair old pace. I think I can speak for the rest of the band when I say this is the most productive and happy time that we've had together and I hope this comes across in the music. The songs are still in the "workbook" stage so we can't put anything online for your listening pleasure just yet but hopefully we'll having something out there pretty soon.

In the meantime, I'll keep updating this blog with updates on band activity and - for the two or three people who are interested - I'll deliver updates on my Swinging Session gigs.

Yours,

The Singer

P.S. If you have any questions for the band, or you just want to "rap" with us, feel free to post here or on our Facebook page and we'll be happy to engage you.