The James Dean Of Punk – Kirk Brandon

Tonight, I went to see Kirk Brandon in concert with Sam Sansbury (cello) AKoustik Live 2017 at Thornton Little Theatre. Kirk Brandon was lead singer and songwriter with eighties band Spear Of Destiny and Theatre Of Hate and, later, toured with the super group, Dead Men Walking, a group always in transit, always evolving, and has in the past included Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols and Mike Peters from The Alarm, among others.

I got it in my head the other day, that Kirk Brandon is the James Dean of Punk. That’s just my opinion. I can’t call him the Godfather of Punk because that’s Iggy Pop and I can’t call him the Father of punk, because apparently that’s John Lydon. Some people say Malcom McClaren is the Father of punk, but if they do, they are seriously deluded. Actually, I have no idea who the Father of punk is.

I approached Kirk Brandon after the concert and presented him with the first page of a new blank book, announcing him as the James Dean of Punk and he laughed hard and said “Really?” and I said ‘Seriously.’ He signed his signature under the declaration and then I left without saying goodbye or thank you, or in fact, without saying anything, or even looking at him, which I regret, simply because it was rude.  In comparison, he was very sweet and friendly and open. I find it difficult to talk to strangers, but I can exchange papers with them. Those environments when the singer or band hangs backstage with the fans are stressful, false, uncomfortable and unnatural. I suppose it’s just the nature of the beast.

Kirk Brandon is always up for signing autographs, is not precious in the least and doesn’t mind if people take hundreds of photo’s/videos during the gigs. He is also a very talented singer/songwriter into the bargain and is now, literally in my book, the James Dean Of Punk Rock.

kirk brandon james dean

Quote Of The Week

‘Well, the third clown is Google. He’s really funny too. He has a wonderful motor-car and everything goes wrong with it – and in the end it blows up into a hundred different peices! Google has a fine little dog called Squib. You’ll like him. He helps Google with his nonsense!’

Circus Days Again – Enid Blyton  (1942)

Wall To Wall Punks

Last Thursday started the long weekend of the Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool.

It was four days of the best and worst of punk rock music and all it entailed, mohican haircuts, rainbow and (these days) pastel hair colours, studs, tartan, bondage trousers, leather jackets, firm hold hairspray (actually, hairspray is a misnomer, soap, sugar and water and lemon curd are the only things that will make that mohican stand up straight and for a decent time. Maybe glue for the more hard core. Regardless, they all contribute to the The Viagra of the Hair World).

I was there myself, for as long as I could hold out, with a smidgen of blue hair, just to observe and take in the ambience, draped with enough chains and studs to weigh me down to the nearest pub or free live event.

I was never one to go around in a ‘pack’ of punks and could never understand why such an movement, geared to individualism and uniqueness, went around in tribal groups, like a bunch of sheep, all dressed the same, in identical leather jackets. I never had a friend who dressed like me, to help breed the hypocrisy of the uniform and the pack mentality. You’re either an individual or you’re not. You either go it alone or you don’t. As a lone punk, you become a paradox and a truth. As a teenage female punk walking down the street, alone, I would get heaps more abuse than say, a gang of gelled up juveniles with blonde mohawks doing the same thing. No friends to back you up you see, to snarl for you, as it were. The lone sheep is always going to be subject to violence and attack, whether they are a punk, or a hippie, or a metal head, or someone who is dressed in polyester jersey and unfashionable flares, or maybe even just a nice cardie.

Nothing changes. Last weekend, I hung out, around the punk festival, but not at the punk festival, with people who think punk is a) what Clint Eastwood would deem a criminal element b) a snotty nosed whipper-snapper, who needs to get some military training ASAP or c) a piece of wood gone rotten at one end.

To explain, I was, for at least one of those days, with mum and dad. Mum looks upon the whole spectacle quaintly and serenely, enjoys the vibrant tresses, ripped fishnets, Doc Martens and dangerous looking wristbands, says punk people make her happy. When dad heard he was going to be around when the event was in progress, he groaned in resignation, ‘Oh no, I’m 73, I’m too old for this. It’ll be wall to wall punks.’ I like that expression, ‘wall to wall punks’. And that’s what he said when I met and embraced him at the train station, in his suit, tie pin and cufflinks. He said to me, ‘It’s wall to wall punks and I think I’m the only person within three hundred yards wearing a tie.’

‘Now that’s punk.’ I said.

I never went around in a group of punks, a ‘group’ meaning more than one, but like the Greta Garbo of the Johnny Rotten world, I felt isolated at times, alienated. As we congregated, in the square by The Cedar Tavern pub, I thought, we may share the same conical stud belt and crazy colour pigments in our hair, but that’s where the similarity ends. I liked to watch them, as one may like to watch herds of multi coloured wildebeest thundering across the Serengeti that is the Winter Gardens. But I’m a wildebeest too, who has been separated from the herd. I thought I might appreciate, admire these music fans and even get some tips for future dressing, I thought I would enjoy the whole thing from a distance. I thought, punk never died, it just got more pastel.

But then, I changed my mind, the weekend happened…four days…and it was like the best holiday ever. I never got near the Winter Gardens and the actual festival, but it didn’t matter. There was another festival, going on, on the outside, and, on the inside of my mind.

It was all a lesson in social communication. I felt like I belonged. I thought, if I can feel authentic once, I can feel authentic again. I know I can be authentic. Next year, I might actually get a ticket, be a bit rebellious.

I would be happy if I could be punk every day, to dress punk every day and to somehow live it, perhaps with like-minded people. Theatre. Punk. Writing. Music. If I could just incorporate these four things into my life, every day of my life, for the rest of my life, I think I would be happy.

I think everyone has three or four things that will make them happy, if they were pumped in, at the right measure, balanced, varied, those three or four things, interests, hobbies, loves, passions. We all have them. I don’t think it’s just one thing any more. I used to think it was. For me, it was writing, but then, I had the punk passion and the acting passion and I realised it’s usually a combination of a few things and that combination is like a flower arrangement.
It’s the flower arrangement in the vase of the window sill of your life. And then, once we’ve sorted out that part of our lives, we might find the space, energy and incentive to actually do what we were meant to do.

Quote Of The Week

‘The burden of a thinking person is that they think too much. My mind scents the danger of desiring and expecting something fantastic, something that could not possibly happen actually, and of being badly disillusioned.’

–Maggie Joy Blunt from ‘Our Hidden Lives. The Everyday Diaries Of A Forgotten Britain 1945-1948′ by Simon Garfield.

Burger Break Between The Blues

I went to the Jazz and Blues Weekend Festival in Blackpool last weekend held at The Winter Gardens. It was a free event, all for charity and jam packed full of very talented singers, songwriters and musicians. I’m not a jazz fan, I’m more into the blues, and never understood why they heap the two together.  I don’t see the connection, they’re not the least bit alike. Still, I can appreciate and enjoy most kinds of music. My husband, who is not into music per se, and has chronic pain issues, sometimes needs to read to distract from that pain. He sat and read a book on inventions and science for the whole time and got some funny looks from po faced ‘serious’ jazz fans. How can you sit and read while these ‘cool’ musicians do a jazz version of ‘Tainted Love?  It just looked odd to them I suppose. If they had the back story, I’m sure they would have understood.

I’d been listening for jazz for maybe two hours, when I realised I was in need of a bit of fresh air from the seriousness of it all. MACDONALDS, a perfect antidote. I just needed a bit of meat to counteract a Sunday morning hangover, which, unusually, this day, went on until 5 p.m. Ordered two no frills burgers, but was scandalised by the size of the dill pickle, which was about the size of a half penny and you have to be old and British to know what a half penny is. It would make you cry if you were a fan of dill pickle and saw the size of it.

So, burger break and then back to the blues festival and then I realised I had to get back home for role playing at seven. You know, like Dungeons and Dragons, but much better than that, as we’ve moved on from the 80’s stuff, honest, well, some of us have. I wanted to stay at the festival, hadn’t realised how good it was going to be and hadn’t realised it was on until 10p.m.

I had just had my senses assailed by the amazing Mickey Van Gelder and Pat Clarke. Pat Clarke. Oh, what that man can’t do with a harmonica! I wanted to stay so bad, harmonicas aside. However, I knew I had to honour my prior commitments. So, we were watching the wonderful  Lauren Dalrymple, and, embarressingly, had to walk out in the middle of her set, which was at the more intimate Baronial Hall on the Sunday evening.  I thought to myself, if role playing is cancelled, I’ll head straight back into town and hopefully, catch the finale!

We went home and discovered that roleplaying had indeed been cancelled. I got changed, headed back into town and managed to catch the awesome blues finale in the Spanish ballroom. Nick Unlimited were like a heavy bluesy Status Quo, with a bit of Manfred Mann and The Kinks thrown in.

There were kids running around, dancing like crazy, a really full on family atmosphere. I preferred that in some ways to the serious Soul Jazz going on in the other hall, with not a sound, a movement, or a muscle twitch going on. Both atmospheres had their attractions though.

A lot of the musicians, the cream of the festivals crop, went on to a local live jazz/blues/rock nightclub for the after show party. This is when you see passions burst forth with some really good performances. What fascinates me most about these kind of musicians, is the way they flit from instrument to instrument when they are jamming. They sashay from lead guitar, to bass, to keyboard, to percussion. It seems a bit slutty, but you can’t deny their versatility. It’s admirable. The musicians never seem to get drunk, or tired, or want to go home. These guys are really into the music, they feel it, love it and live it.

Blackpool Jazz and Blues Festival 2017 proudly raised funds for Trinity Hospice. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sugar Mummy

Last night, I had a dream about Victoria Beckham. She was sitting on a stool at her breakfast bar, in her kitchen. (No idea if she has one of these in real life). She was in her scruff, un-straightened hair, baggy black t-shirt, the lot.  Although she still looked nice. Vicky would look good dragged through a hedge backwards, wearing a bin bag. She wasn’t with David though, which upset me. She was with some bruiser.

Later on, still in my dream, I was in some nightclub thingy and she’s scrubbed up and walked in there with him.  They began to have a tiff and it turned into a mega argument and I was tiptoeing around them.  When people are having an argument in public, we pretend it’s not happening, suddenly, we become deaf, dumb and blind.

So, anyway, I left the nightclub thingy, as unobtrusively as possible, secretly bemoaning the fact that Vicky had split from David and was now with some sexist, gold-digging thug.

And then I woke up.