Never once did I suggest to the esteemed Mr. Simpson that it would be acceptable to refer to me as “Stu”. There are about half a dozen people in this world who are allowed to call me that, and I’m afraid he isn’t likely to be one of them. I suppose I should be grateful that it is actually a photograph of me and not Karl Burns…

A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by Dave Simpson for an article he was writing for The Guardian newspaper, which involved his tracking down all former members of The Fall. Now, I have never been in The Fall, but Simpson’s definition of “being a member” involved all those who have played live with the group, which I certainly have done, when Mark E. Smith passed me a guitar during the encore at one of the legendary “Granny On Bongos” gigs at the Reading Alleycat in April 1998. I’ve recounted the story with monotonous regularity over the years as it has far more credibility than admitting to having sung backing vocals for Sarah Brightman, which, to my shame, I have also done.

Simpson has compiled material from all of those interviews into a book, The Fallen, prudently launching it at a time when MES is surrounded by something of a media circus again. I haven’t read it or even bought a copy yet, although my suspicion is that it’ll make far better reading than the bar-room babbling of MES’s autobiography. However, I was somewhat perturbed by this review of the book in The Guardian which claims that the aforementioned incident took place in 1989 in Leicester, at which point I would have been just 14 years old. Even more amusing is the fact that the “information” is in quotation marks, so either the reviewer is incapable of quoting a text properly, or Simpson is incapable of reading information freely available on the once-official Fall website.

Priceless. To quote the Hip Priest himself, “Check the record, check the record…”

Every now and again I get a bit stale - usually when I haven’t been kept in an airtight bread bin. To this end, I’ve dusted off my piano and decided to try and coax my fingers into playing the thing properly again. I used to be reasonably useful at it, once.

The idea is to be completely selfish about music-making again, and do it purely for my own pleasure - which is, I think, something I lost sight of. And if you stop enjoying something, you may as well not do it.

So, in order to achieve some sort of focus, I’ll be putting the folk music to one side completely for a while, as I continue to resurrect my tuba-playing and also embark on learning some 20th century piano repertoire that I’ve wanted to get the hang of for years. What interests me particularly is that the rhythmic vitality and articulation so necessary for playing folk tunes well has certainly begun to inform my piano-playing already, especially when playing material based on folk music such as Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro.

I may well continue posting details of my progress here. Who knows, I may even make a few recordings if my playing gets back to a satisfactory standard. Equally, I have no doubt that I’ll resume singing and playing traditional material once my “muse” has had time to refresh itself.

In the meantime, thanks for listening.

Download The Elf Princess (be warned, this is a big file as it’s encoded at 256kbps)

I’ll be announcing some news here shortly about future musical plans, for all half-a-dozen people who might be interested… needless to say, I have a new venture in mind…

So, here’s a very rough electric version of Sam Hall, a traditional song of a foul-mouthed murderer who’s about to swing for his crimes. Beware, if you’re sensitive about strong language, there is some swearing in this song. Sam isn’t a particularly nice character, after all. Damn his eyes.

I’m out of practise with mixing distorted guitars, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Download Sam Hall (5MB approx)

The album will be an iTunes release; here’s a trailer featuring all the artists.

There’s also a sample of the track “West Hagley” from the album on their Leper Colony page.

I’ve dug my tubas out of mothballs and have resumed playing after a 5-year break; I have a good front-action EEb instrument, and a battered 3-valve BBb, which is also front-action, and has quite variable intonation, but it cost me £150 on eBay, so I’m not complaining. It’s also my “outdoor” tuba for playing in bad weather…

I used to play a fair amount of jazz on tuba, as well as playing with a brass band but at the moment I’m simply working on the fact that my lungs and lips are in a shocking state and I can’t sustain long notes even at medium volume! My first goal is to get my lip back to a level whereby I can go and play with the Moseley Village Band - but no doubt the loud farty instruments will find their way onto recordings as well.

Quite how this is going to turn out, I’m not sure - for a start I need to decide whether to use real or programmed drums, and, if the former, whether I play them myself or not… decisions, decisions…

And then I’ll probably need to buy a new fuzz-box. My much-cherished DOD Supra-distortion pedal, which I’ve had for about 15 years, has finally given up the ghost, and the cheapo nasty pedal I picked up from a bargain bin in Oxford doesn’t have the capacity for going completely out of control that the DOD had. The Danelectro “French Toast” octave/fuzz pedal seems to have a bit of a reputation for being erratic and messy, which sounds ideal for my purposes, but if anyone has any better ideas I’m all ears.