A couple of years ago I made reference to Kevin Ayers 'Shouting in a Bucket Blues', spelling his name wrong in the process. It's about time I posted a link.
Sorry - missed this post at the time. I hadn't thought about Ayers for decades. This is not supposed to be a "two handshakes from immortality" story, but I once met the man - I was playing in a second-rate prog-rock band which by some freak got a season of supporting jobs at the old Maryland in Scott Street, Glasgow - I guess we were cheap. Over a period of 2 months my lot were blown off the stand every Friday night, successively by Air Force, Grail, Colosseum, Pete Brown's Piblokto and a bunch of others - one such was Ayers' band (The Whole World?). Ayers was completely out of his head - he spoke at great length about his discovery of macrobiotic food - he consumed several tubes of some strange paste made from seaweed, and washed it down with a bottle of Haig Dimple. I remember the evening particularly because he took a liking to my guitar (I had an old white Telecaster in them days) and insisted on borrowing it for his set. Since he was a celeb (and that) I let him, and he staggered about with it, bumping into things. I got upset when he decided to try to fret it, slide style, with the empty Haig bottle, so when he took the Tele off to play his acoustic I quietly pinched it back. He was too pissed to notice. His band, i regret to say, were woeful. Memories...
As a non-musician I've always been astonished by their capacity to carry on playing while being so out of it as to be unable to function properly in any other way. I wouldn't get much accounting done after a bottle of Scotch.
Sorry - missed this post at the time. I hadn't thought about Ayers for decades. This is not supposed to be a "two handshakes from immortality" story, but I once met the man - I was playing in a second-rate prog-rock band which by some freak got a season of supporting jobs at the old Maryland in Scott Street, Glasgow - I guess we were cheap. Over a period of 2 months my lot were blown off the stand every Friday night, successively by Air Force, Grail, Colosseum, Pete Brown's Piblokto and a bunch of others - one such was Ayers' band (The Whole World?). Ayers was completely out of his head - he spoke at great length about his discovery of macrobiotic food - he consumed several tubes of some strange paste made from seaweed, and washed it down with a bottle of Haig Dimple. I remember the evening particularly because he took a liking to my guitar (I had an old white Telecaster in them days) and insisted on borrowing it for his set. Since he was a celeb (and that) I let him, and he staggered about with it, bumping into things. I got upset when he decided to try to fret it, slide style, with the empty Haig bottle, so when he took the Tele off to play his acoustic I quietly pinched it back. He was too pissed to notice. His band, i regret to say, were woeful. Memories...
ReplyDeleteAs a non-musician I've always been astonished by their capacity to carry on playing while being so out of it as to be unable to function properly in any other way. I wouldn't get much accounting done after a bottle of Scotch.
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