Monthly Mouse Hunt Revisited

impossible songs

impossible songs

Monthly mouse hunt revisited.

A busy week for us and the cat. It seems like he’s been catching mice everyday. Possibly as a result of the harvesting work in the field nearby. This morning I got up to find a poor dead mouse placed on top of the barrel table outside our back door. Left there as an early morning gift for us no doubt. Funny how hard it is to appreciate this kind of thing at the start of the day.

The rest of the week has been spent drinking beer and playing music at various local venues with Martin, Heike and Siggi. Sunday’s gig was outside under the Forth Railway Bridge at the Two Bridges Hotel as part of Ferrystock II in the Arts Festival. A brilliant day with great performances from our friends Norman Lamont, Jill Hepburn, Ewan Michael Riley, Tommy Mackay and the Impossible Songs bigger band. The day was sunny, warm and the promenade was crowded with visitors, sightseers and all kinds of water borne activity on the river. I don’t think Martin, Heike and Siggi had ever expected to play in such a unique and spectacular setting.

Monday night we played at the medieval Priory Church with a far smaller audience but a fantastic overall sound (thanks to Martin), a fun and intimate gig that saw us all playing well and ending in an impromptu jam on a reggae version of one of Norman’s songs, the name of which escapes me. Then back to our house with a few friends in tow for more beer, cake and wine (the staples of the German diet it seems).

On Wednesday we played at the hot and sweaty Forest Cafe with special guests Confushion (Fraser and John) providing a blinding half hour set in the middle of ours. The Bohemian, candlelit, shambolic café atmosphere was great and though we made a few blunders and the drum programmes were temperamental it was a very enjoyable night. I was happy not to fall from the tiny stage and that the mountainous PA speakers surrounding us stayed in place despite looking likely to collapse at any moment. Again the night ended in a small beer fest lasting into the wee small hours. Martin, Heike and Siggi left to begin the long journey home next morning nursing the now familiar beer headaches and hangovers.

Set list (for the week):

Nobody Jones
Dancing
Old Enough
That’s my baby
Futon Blues
Happy Like
Rainbow
Tragedy Queen
Not Pretty
I miss that boy
Syrus’ Song

Thursday was the regular OOTB night and was a pretty quiet one though the quality of performances was high. I was compere for the night and Tommy Mackay started the evening with “Pink Floyd are shit”, his Syd Barrett tribute song. As I listened to the lyrics properly (for the first time) I realised how good a song it was and how poignant it had become. On the way home in the car we had our usual sing-song based around the Supreme’s “Happening” meeting Herb Alpert’s “Tijuana Taxi”, bizarre but a total hoot and ripe for a remix or a cover. This led nicely into the Chiffons “Chapel of Love” and the idea of forming a tribute band called the “Pish Supremes”. The name emerged when we realised we couldn’t figure out what the opposite of supreme might be. Two middle-aged men driving in a car singing MoTown, guilty pleasures? I suppose you had to be there..