Caught in-between Nick Harper and Dave Graney and other Tricks of the Mind, London June 2011

Unless you’ve been asleep somewhere for the last century, you’d know that London is probably the pre-eminent centre for music, arts, fashion, and entertainment in the Western world. Yes, I know you scream, what about Milan for Fashion, New York for Broadway, LA for film, Paris for art? But, London has everything, it may not be at the top of each art discipline, but I would put it forward as the centre that is the best of all things.

For me though, you can have your Art Galleries, your Philharmonic concert halls, your Grande Ballet  pavilions, your Opera houses, and your “walking coat-hanger” Cat Walks....Rock Music is my thing!

And London has been the place for popular music for over 50 years. This town has an appreciation for talent and has given birth or life to most of the greatest sounds heard on the airwaves. Jimi Hendrix was a nobody in the USA, and London embraced him, gave him a band, a manager, and immortality. The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Clash, Radiohead and countless others( who do deserve to be named, but I don’t have the space, but, ok then two of my all-time favourites; Yes and King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer...ok, so that’s three!).

London is like a melting pot of sounds and possibilities. So much of this music comes from the North and the West of the country, but it all seems to gravitate to London eventually. This is where the money and the people, the venues, and the influential rock magazines all co-exist and together create “the scene”.

So, it was with great expectations that I arrived back in London, and, on a cool Sunday night in Camden with Team KW in tow, saw Nick Harper, a singer-songwriter, acoustic guitar genius, and innovator; I had discovered him in a round-about way some years ago. His father, Roy Harper, is an absolute legend in this country. It is coming up to his 70^th Birthday this year and he has sold out the Royal Albert Hall in advance for the occasion. Roy sang the lead on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”; the only time (to my knowledge) that Dave Gilmour didn’t on a Floyd song ( and I know you are going to say “Great Gig in the Sky”, but that doesn’t count for obvious reasons!). Nick grew up with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd members popping around for tea and scones, and many of the greats of this time played on Dad’s albums for free under assumed names to avoid contractual obligations; such is the esteem Roy Harper is held in.

Nick has trodden his own path, and developed his own style and his own following. He is a guitarist’s guitarist, and has developed a unique tuning/re-tuning technique during songs, refitting his guitar with banjo string winders with stops. His music moves from traditional folk influences to rock and classical; Frank Zappa to Elvis and Led Zeppelin. He is a joker, a communicator and a bit of a showman when he’s on stage. He takes the stage tonight and has the audience in fits immediately as he teases a woman about her need for a “bum cushion” to get through the show. I’m hoping he breaks a guitar string; I’ve seen footage of him breaking a string, and changing and retuning it without missing a beat during a song. He does, but its right at the end of a song and we miss out. The people standing behind us are waiting to see the same thing, so we all swap stories about Nick’s antics when he takes a break and Kate brings back more beer.

He runs through the songs familiar to most of the sold out crowd: Two Way Thing, Aeroplane, and Blood Song. He does the “Guitar Man”,” Whole Lotta Love” combo, complete with screams and heavy, distorted guitar....not bad for a solo, acoustic performer. So, Nick rocks the house, finishes to a standing ovation, and the gig ends. I am determined to meet him; why, I’ve come from Australia just to see him for Christ’s sake, and I’ve set my guitar up the same as his.

We wait as everyone files out. Some stop to buy CD’s or enquire after Roy’s health, and eventually I get to meet him. Nick is as congenial as he looks, and before you know it we’ve missed the last train home, our conversation goes on for so long. We really hit it off, Kate takes a few photos of us together, and he hits me with a bombshell. “Do you know Dave Graney? I think I’m his biggest fan”.

What? The Rock-Noir comedic, smooth singer from my home state, South Australia. Well, yeah, I know him, or of him; in fact, I said hello to him last year when he played a gig in Adelaide, so does that qualify?

The man from Harper-Space has a dream; to go on tour with Dave Graney around Australia. Dave Graney was massive in Australia in the mid-90’s. He had a big hit with “Rock and Roll is where I Hide” and Nick intersperses our conversation with quotes from Dave’s songs.....”my shtick is bigger than your shtick”, “an undercover man, maybe a spy”. Things are getting spooky for me, I wonder if this guy is possessed by a misunderstood Demon- from-Downunder. He asks me with a hoarse whisper before we go “could you contact Dave Graney for me”?

So I chased Dave Graney down. He has a web-site but no email. He has no manager or phone number. But I found his Blog. And I wrote on it, you know, in the comments section. Dave Graney probably thinks it’s a deranged former Spice Girls fan who got lost and mistook him for David Beckham (you’d have to have eyesight problems as well).  But Dave Graney..you’re on notice!

Two nights later, the Team drag me along to The Roundhouse, to see indie-pop band Belle and Sebastian. I admit I wasn’t all that enthusiastic, but the crowd and the love and happiness  they exuded enveloped me,  and overwhelmed my BS state-of-denial. I admit it, I think I fell in love with Belle and Sebastian that Tuesday night, that is, until I found out their names are Stuart and Stuart and they are from Glasgow, not Provence.

 A late drink, a Byron Burger, and home to bed.

I wake up the next morning in a pool of sweat, and spend the next two weeks trying to recover from a bout of very strange ‘flu. Just a raging temperature, and the feeling a wire brush has torn out half my lungs and larynx. At least this gives my liver some time to recover.

It’s freezing in London and I’m sick. So, I play a trick of the mind on Team KW and introduce them to Derren Brown. I show them replays of his shows until they are hooked and hypnotised and guess what? Derren Brown has a live show at the Shaftsbury theatre while I am here! The magician, misdirectionist, author, showman, artist and skeptic is not all that well known outside of the UK, but he’s a big crowd puller in London, and I’m a big fan.

Derren doesn’t disappoint. He has the audience write down their most embarrassing secret, and randomly draws some from a bowl. He scans the audience after reading the secret out and is able to pick out the young lady who has” sexy dreams about animals” much to the audiences delight. He randomly hypnotises, reads body language and inner thoughts. Kate is having an anxiety attack thinking  she may be called on stage after Wayne and I tell her we have written her secret and sent it to the front whilst she has gone to the toilet . But it’s all a tease, poor Kate!

It’s coming to the end of my London sojourn, and we catch the train to Leeds. It’s a Saturday night and Nick Harper has put tickets on the door for us at his Headingly Stadium gig. There’s more space here, and people seem a lot more relaxed than London. There is far less ethnicity apparent, but when we to go a local pub for dinner, the food is very average and we are accosted by a roly-poly bumble-bee and an ostrich; and a host of Oompa-Loompas, superwomen,  and spidermen seemingly all with muffin tops. It’s an annual pub crawl for the Leeds Saturday night faithful the bumble-bee informs us; after apologising for looking at us-we must really look out of place here!

16 pubs in one night with a double shot or 2 drinks at each swilling station. They are about half-way there when we happen upon them, both in pubs and blood alcohol levels, and I can see the penultimate pub, the aptly named “Dry Dock” will literally be pouring punters out on to the streets at closing time.

We head down to the gig, the crowd is light tonight, it seems all of Leeds are out with the Oopa-Lumpas tonight. We say hi to Nick and have a chat before the show. Tonight is cosier and more intimate, he knows just about everyone by name, and he plays a couple of my requests, in particular “Like a Vampire”. It’s a great show, I don’t think this guy would ever disappoint. He plays Dave Graney’s “Rock and Roll is Where I Hide” as his closing encore song. We chat for a while after the gig, and the promoter shares stories of other UK rock legends that he has worked with. It seems Ian Hunter, of 70’s band Mott the Hoople and a massive solo career, has finally hit the jackpot after being out in the music and financial wilderness for 30 years. Barry Manilow recorded his song “Ships” on a very early album nearly 40 years ago, before he was really known. Everyone has forgotten about it except Barry, who has included it on his recently released “Greatest Hits” album. The album sold something like 5 million copies in the first week of release giving Ian Hunter his greatest success at the ripe old age of 72. It just goes to show, persistence pays off, well, eventually.

And it’s never too late.

A quick trip to York the next day, then back to London on the train. My time here is almost done, but I must finish by saying;

Do yourself a favour and check out Nick Harper; www.harperspace.com

And Dave Graney, if I don’t hear from you, Derren Brown will hypnotise you from this side of the world, and you may awaken to find yourself doing the chicken dance onstage at your next gig!