Diary of a touring musician: days 13 - 16
In September & October 2023, we took to the road in the UK to introduce our new album STARLITE.ONE. This is part 15 of the warts-and-all-account.
If you happened upon this episode for the first time, we suggest you check out the other articles in the series by heading over to:
It’s Saturday and on day 13 of our UK tour.
We had fortuitously rented a really cool cottage for the week to use as a base for the last few concert dates in the quaint village of Embsay. It made complete economic sense and it was good to have some private space for a while - an unexpected luxury on the road.
We arrived following our gig on Friday at The Met in the early hours of Saturday morning, it was late and we were pretty fucked, but walking into the kitchen we were greeted by a mighty AGA, sitting resolute and proud in the heart of the house. When living in a cold climate, these classic cookers are the heartbeat of any home. Thank you universe.
If you remember from earlier articles we should have been playing at the Whitham Arts Centre tonight but cutting a long story-bluntly, they cancelled the concert due to a multitude of factors including the booking agent from the venue mysteriously leaving the company and not notifying us or our agent, very poor promotion and low ticket sales.
Not gigging on a Saturday night feels like a crime! It’s the premier night for playing and it pissed us off - but there was nothing to be done.
We arose a little later than usual and always trying to look on the bright side where every cloud has a silver lining, we were delighted to discover that there was a pub just across the road called the Elm Tree Inn that sold real bitter. Result! So we popped across the road for a couple of pints and spent a few hours chilling out.
Day 14 - Sunday, October 8
It was unseasonably hot in the UK and something you wouldn’t dare to complain about.
We were relaxing a little and catching up on sleep when the lurgy struck and we all started to feel like shit!
Hugo stayed in bed and we made a trip to Morrisons supermarket for provisions, bought some essential spices for cooking and arranged to meet our son Joe, his wife Christina and our granddaughter Emma in the pub that evening. That would cheer us all up - a good dose of family-loving!
Drummers are always hungry and Simon cooked a curry for dinner. Curry is good when you are ill.
Day 14 - Monday, October 09
We should have driven this route on Sunday - our only date in Scotland at the legendary Bannerman’s in Edinburgh.
The gig we should have played on Saturday was in Barnard Castle which is on the way and as the gig was on Monday night, we had planned to stay with friends on Sunday in Edinburgh.
We have played there before and have many supporters within 40 miles but sadly ticket sales were lower than expected and despite asking everyone to buy in advance, some didn’t. It was of course a Monday night which is often hard to get a good turnout and we were looking at losing £500 if we did the gig. There is also no help with the get-in or get-out and we were also facing a four-hour drive home after the gig. We just couldn’t do it.
This is a recent Facebook post from Bannermans and sadly it’s not just us. The UK music scene is in dire straits…
Gartone Amps
When in the UK we never waste time and Simon had arranged to drop off his Supertone/Gartone Vibrato King amp with Martin Garton of Gartone Amps. He is an excellent amp builder and an interesting character, as many people working in audio tech tend to be.
There had been an intermittent fault for a few months and it was an opportune time to take it back to the maker and get it fixed. It only happened when it was on full volume and played with great ferocity.
After the amp ‘drop off’ we filled up with fuel at Sainsbury’s, popped into Tesco’s for food and bought a few jars of Marmite - Starlite’s sacred treasure and hard to find in Portugal. When you do, usually in ex-pat areas, it’s at least double the price.
Hello Skipton
It was time for a trip to Skipton to show Hugo some proper Northern culture as he had not travelled outside of the cities before.
We always like to pay a visit to the Oxfam bookshop at the top of town as you never know what treasures you may find in there. Today did not disappoint - Simon discovered the book pictured below by Brian Eno and also a vintage copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Result!!
We decided to eat out and have lunch in one of our favourite haunts, the Woolly Sheep Inn, located funnily enough on Sheep Street in Skipton. The front room is like taking a trip back in time and is always a place of comfort for us - a reminder of our ancestry and cultural heritage.
A few years ago the pub had been voted ‘Best North Eastern Managed Pub of the Year’. It serves a well-kept pint of our favourite Timothy Taylor’s bitter, the food is home-cooked and it’s also dog-friendly. Triple win!! We were missing our hairy beasts who had to stay behind in Portugal and it was a tonic to share the room with cool hounds.
If you haven’t tried Timothy Taylor’s bitter - we highly recommend you pleasure your senses with probably the best pint of English bitter you will ever experience. Landlord is our favourite with Boltmaker a close second!
Photos
We were thrilled when Stuart Bebb from Oxford Camera sent through zillions of fabulous photographs he had taken of the STARLITE.ONE multimedia concert at The Met, Bury. Fantastic!!
We returned home and finished off the last of the red wine we had brought from Portugal in the ‘box of inconvenience’. A good bottle of red can cost €4-8 but you pay at least triple if not more for a wine of equal excellence in the UK.
Hugo cooked a delicious seafood pasta dinner but complained he could only find frozen muscles and clams.
We spent the evening, our bodies and tongues oiled by the rich fruits of Portuguese vineyards, sharing stories and chatting about life, the tour and our future plans.
Day 15 - Tuesday, October 10
A trip to Matamp
Remember we mentioned about audio tech guys being characterful? Well, the very troublesome Jeff Lewis from Matamp is right up there with the best of them.
Before we go any further, it’s important to mention that we love Jeff, however, in a unique Yorkshire way, he can be a right royal pain in the arse and love him even more because of it.
He also thinks Simon is a pain in the arse so you can imagine the fun these guys have, sparring with technical language that only aliens and audio geeks can understand.
Jeff has a soft spot for Suzy and is very generous with chocolate biscuits and sharing his bag of boiled sweets when she is around.
Supertone Matamp: the monster British sound
A few years ago, Simon, Jeff and his business colleague Hayden Minett worked together on producing a bespoke Supertone Matamp range for both bass and electric guitars. It was featured in the February 2020 edition of Bass Guitar Magazine and is available to buy on the Supertone Records website.
Matamp was founded by Mat Mathias whose original design was used by Orange Amplification in the UK for their legendary amplifiers of the late 60s, and early 70s and brought to the attention of the guitar and bass community by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Wishbone Ash.
Mat passed away many years ago but Simon did meet him and had a tour of the original factory - amazing memories.
Supertone, renowned for its passion and dedication to all things analog, has two Supertone MatAmp models with the same preamp based on the original designs but tweaked by Suzy and Simon; a 200W (4 x KT88 output valves) and 120W, (4 x EL34 output valves) suitable for both bass and guitar.
The 200W bass head is NOT for the faint hearted; the massive transformers and hand-wired circuitry produce incredible bass response down to 20Hz, there’s a real punch in the midrange with glistening highs finished off with venue crumbling volume!
The ‘Supertone Matamp’ is the epitome of the British sound of the halcyon days of rock ’n roll for both bass and electric guitars.
Simon left his guitar head with the chaps as he wanted the preamp section revoicing: he is always striving for a better tone…
When they got home, Starlite was still feeling really ill so Simon attempted to cook a stir-fry for the poorly sick household plus Christina, Joe and Emma who rocked up for dinner. The AGA was an electric version and could not achieve the fierce heat required to produce an authentic stir-fry - you need a gas hob to do that. So dinner ended up more ‘broiled’ than ‘fried’, but it was fresh, nutritious and home-cooked.
Joe is a professional chef: there were complaints.
We complimented the meal with some medicinal vinho tinto.
Sometimes, Starlite’s conversation can transform into a somewhat cryptic world of exploratory thought that can be hard to follow, especially after a few glasses of vinho tinto - as Hugo discovered that night. It doesn't help if English is not your first language either.
Housekeeping
The front door key to the house decided to break and then the toilet developed a fault and would not stop flushing. It wasn’t a big problem but we were mindful of waste, so we contacted the landlady through Air BnB who immediately came back: great service.
Martin Garton rang and told Simon he couldn’t find any fault with the amp. Mmmm - did they play it on full with great ferocity? Clearly not.
The weather was starting to get colder again.
New eyewear
When we first arrived in the UK for the tour, we visited the mighty ‘King of Eyewear’ Jez Levy of Eyes on St. Albans. Following a thorough eye test, Jez plonked these frames on our noses and styled us with two pairs of contemporary, cutting-edge designs from innovative British eyewear company Kirk & Kirk, crafted from bespoke Italian acrylic and handmade in France.
It takes a few days for the lenses to be manufactured so Jez shipped them up to us. There was a knock on the door and a package was delivered containing our new frames!
We look a bit ill in this photo but our new glasses are ace and the blue lenses are superb!! We are very lucky to have such crazily talented people supporting us!
Day 16 - Wednesday, October 11
Simon spent the morning reviewing all the playback tracks for our concerts and ironing out a few glitches.
Hugo was ill and spent the day in bed but managed to do some work on his Porto Drum Show which was happening two weeks after we returned.
Travelling so much we only get a few opportunities to indulge our Timothy Taylor’s best bitter fetish and piled down to the pub. Today there was none available so we had to settle for a couple of pints of very agreeable Knowle Spring Blonde Ale.
In other news, deeply sadly, we were finally forced to start legal proceedings against the Pioneer Club for non-payment of our fee. We are musicians, not lawyers. Depressing.
The Greystones
In the afternoon we did some more tour housekeeping and checked on the marketing for our gig at The Greystones in Sheffield where we had played twice before. Surprisingly there was no mention of our concert from the venue itself - weirdly, we weren’t even featured on their Facebook page within the past month.
We have been working with Chris Wilson, the promoter from the Greystones and Boardwalk in Sheffield for a few years and finally got the contact number for the sound engineer for our gig at the venue tomorrow night.
There had been a last-minute burst of ticket sales, which was heartening. We had a whole clan planning to come from Sheffield including our great friends Dave Swindells and Linda Craine who were travelling especially for the gig from the Isle of Man.
Curry
When back in the UK there are a couple of traditions that need to be adhered to. A healthy refreshing of the body with a few pints of Timothy Taylor’s bitter and visiting an Indian restaurant for spice-filled enlightenment.
If you read any of our articles in this series, it quickly becomes apparent we love curry.
The restaurant we usually frequent when in town is the Aagrah, situated in a picturesque location next to the Leeds and Liverpool canal at Waterside Court. Walking along the canal path to the restaurant, the atmosphere is mesmeric transporting you back in time and a fantastic setting for any restaurant.
Blinkin’ Nora! The price of a curry has skyrocketed since we were last in the UK! We knew we would be served quality food but wow! This time, the service in the restaurant was strangely wooden, the staff being more concerned about rushing everything and trying to get you out of the door so that they could close early. Dining out is not just about the food - it’s the whole experience. And we know how welcoming and hospitable they had been in the past!!
On checking to add a link to the restaurant it appears to have closed down: always a sad day, but it had changed and not in a good way since our last visit.
The walk back to the van of rock was once again enchanting, past the silence of the narrow canal boats and twinkling lights reflecting another time and a different way of life, floating silently on the cold, still water.
There was a cold snap in the air and it felt good to be alive.
We were grateful for a full stomach and looking forward to returning to work tomorrow night, meeting friends old, making friends new and playing our music once again.
Next up a gig at The Greystones, Sheffield and a reunion at Hamish’s in Blacko.