Apologies to Ged Quinn, and indeed to Paul Simpson for my mistake in identifying the elusive member of the Wild Swans alluded to by the chap who wanted a shifty at my copy of Marquee Moon the other night. As pointed out by another Exeter resident (via a mutual friend in New Zealand – don’t you just LOVE this internet thing sometimes?), it was quite clearly Ged he was talking about, and indeed Ged WAS in the Teardrop Explodes for a time when he and Paul swapped keyboard/washing up duties. So that’s THAT cleared up then, isn’t it? Now I’m off to play ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ one more time. Or maybe two. Or three…
posted by duke harringay at 7:14 PM

DJ-ed

Went out and DJed for the first time in several years last night. It started out a disaster with me turning up at the venue with a bag of CDs grabbed form the shelves at almost random only to find that they had no CD players, only decks. And this despite me leaving a message on their answerphone two days previous saying ‘I presume you have CD players and decks’… So it was then a swift dash home through the pissing rain, an even swifter exchange of CDs for an equally random armful of vinyl before yet another dash through the wet darkness back to the venue. Where I then could not work out for the life of me how to get the fucking headphones to work in the mixer, so then had to cue everything up by eye. Grrr. Most things came in on time though, so maybe my eye isn’t so bad. Of course this meant that I couldn’t check the speed of records that I hadn’t played in an absolute age, like Aquarius’ ‘Drift To The Centre’. I know that loads of the Looking Good 12”s were 33, but that some were 45… and is the Clientele ‘Lost Weekend’ vinyl a 33 or a 45? I had never played it in that format so didn’t know and of course the label was of no help, so, well that was a bunch of things I couldn’t play. Couldn’t risk the embarrassment of getting something at the wrong speed, after all… Oh, and I was standing behind the PA so couldn’t tell what it sounded like, or how loud it was, or, oh all those kind of important things. However, despite all that, it all went swimmingly. I think. I certainly had a pretty good time, playing some old records I hadn’t played in ages, at least certainly not on vinyl. Other folks seemed to enjoy it too. At least so they said. Indeed, after just three songs (Tortoise ‘Magnet Pulls Through’, Mouse on Mars ‘Frosch’ and Simple Minds ‘Theme For Great Cities’) I had a chap up enthusiastically thanking me for playing such good tunes… later another youngster (sorry, but anyone under thirty these days seems like a youngster to me!) came and said similar things, whilst another wanted to buy me a drink for playing Pavement’s ‘Summer Babe’. Strangest of all was the chap who came up enquiring of ‘Marquee Moon’. He started talking about a chap he knows who used to be in a band called The Wild Swans… said he used to play keyboards for the Teardrop Explodes. I mean, WOW! This is Paul Simpson, right? Or maybe Ged Quinn, although I don’t recall Ged ever playing for the Teardrops. Well, anyway, I started ranting about how great ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ was, and this chap was saying how he had a copy of that, and that his friend/patient was now living in Cornwall, so, I said to tell him there’s someone in Exeter who think that ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ is one the greatest singles ever made, and uh, yeah… He was a really nice bloke. And I love how those strange connections get made.

So of course now I kind of fancy doing some more… although in the light of day today I reminded myself of how much I came to hate doing the whole Living Room club thing all those years ago, so maybe I don’t fancy doing some more after all. Maybe if someone else organised all the equipment and venues and shit and I could just get on with playing tunes… that would be the thing. Ha ha. Dream on.

And in Exeter? Well….

Yes, well.


posted by duke harringay at 7:38 PM