Artist: Steve White & The Protest Family
Title: Snowflake
Keywords: punk folk protest singer-songwriter United Kingdom
Steve White is the protest artist that gives it to you raw and in your face. With a sense of humor, but not with the laughing laughers as he is certainly no comedian. He apparently is one of those special ‘snowflake’ people in the United Kingdom that got a lot of things to say, probably accumulated things that angered him and gladly found the right way to get it all out of his system and off his chest. A great thing as worrying too much about stuff & keeping it all in might be an invitation to get the cancers.
Here these worries and cases of social commentary are punching out songs with strong meaning, as if they are fists that want to beat some sense in the all-round senselessness of the times that…
Well if you were hanging around with us the weekend before last, then you were hanging around with some of the Hope not Hate crowd because they were behind the Billy Bragg/The Wakes gig at Islington Assembly Hall and our show with The Wakes at The New Cross Inn the following night. And what a weekend it was! Uncle Bill was on fine form on the Friday and if you enjoyed The Wakes that night then their extended headline show was even better.
You may also have noticed our good friend Matthew trying to upstage Billy Bragg with his intro and, um, dancing on tables at the New Cross Inn. Here he is, in slightly more serious mode, introducing this month’s Far Right Round Up. We know songs about quite a few of them…..
I hate that question and it catches me out every time even though I know it’s coming. Answer that and stay fashionable. I’m a songwriter and I write about what’s going on around me, politically often, from experience usually, trying to see things through someone else’s eyes occasionally. I want to write a song with an opening line that tells a whole story in a few words (influence: Billy Bragg), I want to write a song with a clever, funny, persistent rhyme scheme (influence: Ian Dury), I want to write a song that the whole band comes in with a bang right at the beginning (influence: The Clash), I want to write a modern acapella folk song (influence Chumbawamba), I want to write a song about Brexit (influence: David Cameron, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, EU directives, the electorate), I want to write a song that exorcises my rage and frustration (influence: Future Of The Left, Christian Fitness), I want to write a song with a killer hook and an immediate singalong chorus (influence The Wildhearts), I want to write a song about the second-fastest milkcart in the West……
But enough about me.
The Wakes cite The Pogues, Dick Gaughan, The Clash, Dropkick Murphys and Bob Dylan, wisely using the word “including” to avoid making an exhaustive list, which should be enough to give you some idea. Proudly Glaswegian and anti-fascist, I was blown away the first time I saw them live and they come highly recommended by The Family.
You can make your own mind up at the end of the month. The Wakes are opening for Billy Bragg at Islington Assembly Hall on the 25th, and we’re lucky enough to be opening for them on the 26th at the New Cross Inn. If that wasn’t tempting enough, we’ll be joined by our good friend and Bragg favourite, Paddy Nash.
Philosophy Football are already calling it the gig of the year, and you can still get a ticket here.
I suspect that The Wakes’ and Protest Family’s influences Venn diagram has actually got more than one name in the bit where the circles intersect, so who’s going to edit their Wikipedia page and add Uncle Bill?
When I looked through my diary it turned out that there was a bit more in it than I’d remembered. I thought it had been a quiet year on the music front, too quiet in fact, and when it comes to the Protest Family that’s undoubtedly true, but I did play a lot more solo, and solo unplugged than I have done for some time.
That’s not to say that it’s not been without its pitfalls. There was the gig where I gave up after a couple of songs because I couldn’t be heard over the din of conversation (that felt like a complete fucking failure on my part I can tell you) and the one that finished before I’d even taken my coat off. Then there was the show to six people, three of whom were the other acts and the sound engineer; but they’re always offset by the good ones, the good audiences, where the songs work and the magic happens, and playing with no safety net to an audience that had already been treated to Robb Johnson AND Attila the Stockbroker’s Barnstormer 1649 unplugged, and getting away with it, is one of this year’s personal highlights.
Actually, Robb features a lot in this year’s highlights. The launch of Ordinary Giants in November was just a joy; the narrative, the performances, the warmth in the room, it was lovely, and here I was all of a sudden rubbing shoulders with Boff Whalley, Swill Odgers, Matthew Crampton…the list goes on, and being treated as a peer. It was wonderful. I bought a few copies of the album as Christmas presents and Robb kindly threw in a copy of the Live at Walthamstow CD that Russ recorded when we previewed some of the songs from the show at the folk club in January, another great memory. I am toying with the idea of introducing Who Buggered Bognor into a Protest Family set sometime.
I’ve spent some time at the controls this year too, mixing live sound for Chris Parsons’ gig in Dronfield* and at the SUMAC for WSO Acoustic Punks & Poets where it’s always a pleasure to catch up with Rachel and Eagle and other old friends. (Thanks Pete for putting up with me again). I’ve been learning more about recorded sound too and I think that you can hear the results on Snowflake. I recorded to a click for the first time when I tracked Fake News From Nowhere and I used the same technique for Snowflake while improving how I mic an acoustic guitar for recording and being far more subtle in my use of compression.
There’s a button here somewhere that does something.
At the risk of pre-empting the outcome of a band meeting, I’d like to multi-track the next Protest Family album which will mean all of us learning to love the click, a departure from the way we’ve recorded the other studio albums which we cut live to our own natural rhythm. There’s something to be said for that approach, it captures the energy of us all working together, but it’s tougher to do with drums, and the next album will definitely have drums on it. Looking (and listening) back, the electric guitar songs on Protest For Dummies are crying out for percussion. We’ve got a good seven new songs ready to go, so it’s a conversation to be had sooner rather than later, but if we do it my way it’ll mean considerably more studio time and therefore expense, so we’ll have to think about how we deal with that and whether we’re brave enough to go down the crowdfunding route.
Which brings us to Family matters.
We recognised at the end of last year that things were slowing down for us. Protest For Dummies hadn’t sold as well as its predecessor and gigs were getting fewer and further between and were tending to come from the same places that they always had. None of us have industry connections and our best attempts at marketing The Protest Family better never really amount to much, but we were all agreed that it was time to experiment with drums and to re-launch the band with a bigger, bolder sound that might, just might, generate a bit of traction. Andi Bridges was always our first choice of drummer and, happily for us, he was keen to come and play.
I suppose with hindsight we were naive to think that we could carry on setting up and mixing the band like a folk act and add a loud drummer, but rehearsals at Bally** didn’t really give us that insight and it wasn’t until we started our soundcheck for the gig at the Rose & Crown in April that we realised we might have a problem; the problem being that we just couldn’t hear ourselves or each other properly, even with the foldback up so loud it was permanently at the point of feeding back. Worse, the audience couldn’t hear the vocals anymore, and worse still we were becoming a sound engineer’s nightmare. Stoicism and the patience of our friends in the audience got us through that show, and hoping it was just issues with that particular PA system, we took the same set-up to the Black Bull in Gateshead** a week later with predictably similar results. (Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing).
Too loud
Bands will tell you that in such circumstances there is only one solution, one that we immediately sought, and that is to blame the drummer. We told Andi that he was too loud and encouraged him to play with matchsticks, toothpicks, brushes or anything that would make stage volumes more manageable, while still aiming to put the whole band’s stage sound through the monitors.
Fortunately we needed to be flexible for our next gig, at East Ham Working Men’s Club on May Day, so Andi downgraded to cajon and hand percussion. Handy, as we ended up playing unplugged.
That experience lead us to the cajon-based kit that Andi’s playing with us currently which he used at the Matchwomen’s Festival and at our WSO event at the Rose & Crown in October. (By the way, that event raised over £1000 for services looking after those hit hardest by austerity in our community, so thanks to all that came, sung, danced, enjoyed the music and dug deep. And thanks Tom Ferguson for letting us hijack your birthday party like that). The pared down kit made things better, but still not right.
During this period we’d also recruited Simon Armstrong on bass to cover for Doug’s continuing absence, and it was him that finally persuaded us that although the “band that turns up on the bus” thing is all well and good, what we really needed to be doing was be grown-ups and take responsibility for our own stage sound by bringing our own amplifiers with us. Retail therapy for some, looking for money down the back of the sofa for an expedition on eBay for others, but we got there in the end and we arrived at our show on the 1st December with a bunch of shiny new kit and a plan. And I’ll tell you what, it worked a treat. No wonder (most) everybody else does it that way. We sounded great on stage and we sounded great to our audience. Finally.
So if there’s one Protest Family story from 2018 it’s this: Steve White & The Protest Family sound better than ever with percussion, it just took us a year to get there. Come and see us at the New Cross Inn on 26th January and we’ll show you what we mean.
Merry Xmas!
Steve
*Dronfield is in NED, which took me ages to work out means North-East Derbyshire. Good luck Chris Peace in your campaign to become their MP.
And so I sat down to write Where Tina Goes. Romantic as that sounds, it wasn’t at some antique writing desk, or in a room with great natural light and a pretty view, it was on the 06-something Chingford to Liverpool Street train for the first day of a course I was on.
It went pretty much to type. I got my thoughts down in order, the rhymes fell into line without too much force, the song had a beginning, a middle and an end; and said what I wanted to say. Standard Steve White/Protest Family fare. But something nagged at me that it wasn’t right, that I could do better.
I let myself stew over it for the day and went back over the words that I’d written that evening. And started crossing stuff out. Not the ideas, they were sound, but everything that the ideas didn’t need in order for them to come across far more succinctly and powerfully than they had in their longer form. “Martin knew something was wrong, but Tina was pretty cool” says so much more than what I’d originally written, by saying less. It was the lesson that I’d learned writing From the Euro to the Pound learned all over again. Billy Bragg says something similar when drawn out over the art of songwriting, just listen to the opening of Levi Stubbs’ Tears for quite how evocative a few well chosen words can be.
But if me at my most verbose is your thing, fear not. This double-EP also contains a classic piece of my writing. Think Like a Taxpayer is wordy, rhythmic, full of rhyme and slap-bang in the middle of Protest Family territory, protesting about tax justice very much in the vein of Pay Your Tax, with a nod to Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book.
Yes, From the Euro to the Pound is here too. I had a long debate with myself about whether there should be a solo release of this song. There’s a lovely Protest Family version already worked out, with Maddy Carty sharing the vocals with me, that (in my opinion) is the definitive version, and I think those of you that have caught us performing it live will agree, but it sits at the heart of a shift in my writing style and introduces the characters that also appear in Children in the Crosshairs and Royal Wedding Tea. I think I owe it to you to let you hear all three songs and get to know this couple as well as I have.
From the Euro to the Pound finds them split up, with a young family, in a cloud of austerity, redundancy and domestic violence. Children in the Crosshairs is later, speaking of separation and shared experience while Royal wedding Tea visits them sooner, still together and happy, despite some differences in their ideas about the Royal Family.
Past solo releases from me have generally filled the gap between Protest Family albums and given me the platform to share the songs that I like to play solo that will never make it onto a Family playlist. While that’s still true to an extent with Snowflake, we are a little way off the band hitting the studio. Doug’s struggles with illness and the benefits system, bringing Simon in in his absence, Andi’s (admittedly very quick) absorption of the Family’s back catalogue and our negotiations/coming to terms with percussion have all slowed us down, so there are more songs on this solo effort from me that either are, or will be Protest Family songs, and the better for it when they are.
You should really know by now what you’re getting with a solo release:
I play the bass, but not as well as Doug or Simon play the bass.
I play mandolin family instruments, but not as well as Lol plays them. (Although I’m still the band’s Irish bouzouki player, officially).
I play percussion, but not as well as Andi plays percussion.
(I’m probably the fourth best guitarist in the current Protest Family line-up, but they’re all playing other instruments, so hey, look at me!).
I don’t play the banjo.
I write a bit.
Flippancy aside, I think that what I’ve done is of value. To me, to us, to the movement, to the struggle for a better, fairer, nicer, more just world and way of living. And it’s shared with you in that spirit: pay what you want, pay what you can afford, pay what you think it’s worth, pay nothing with a clear conscience, I’m happy to give it to you, but listen, enjoy, share and pass it on. What the internet and social media gives us is double-edged; we can share our art, our craft, our work with the world so easily, but so does everybody else and it’s instantly diluted. I’m genuinely excited by the message and presentation of Where Tina Goes, the songs that started with From the Euro to the Pound and all the others, but people who aren’t me and you need to hear them if they’re going to make a difference, so please share them on if you feel the same.
Well we ought to know how this works by now. There’s a period between Protest Family albums where I’m working on new songs, some of which I like, but either the band don’t, or there’s no time to learn it, or it’s just not Protest Family material, and I get itchy feet, record it and put it out myself. But we’re slowing down. The next Protest Family album is still only on the distant horizon, and there will definitely be a more than two-year gap between it (working title: Snowflakes) and Protest For Dummies, and the in-between album’s not an album, it’s an E.P. But anyway, here it is:
The death of facts
Sparked off for me by Michael Gove’s comment that the people of this country have had enough of experts.
Fake news has been around a long time. The authorities claimed in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre in 1819 that the troops and yeomanry had been attacked by the protesters. Protesters including women and children, all in their Sunday best who had marched formally and respectfully to hear speeches about the struggle for their right to vote. Fake news. A century later The Sun and Margaret Thatcher used the same smear tactic to blame the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, leading to the 27-year long fight for justice for the 96.
What makes today different is the internet, the speed with which fake news can be disseminated, and the dilution of trustworthy news sources with sites peddling unintentional and deliberate mis-truths (or alternative facts if you work for Donald Trump). The opinionated bloke in the pub, who’s wrong but influential, has become a whole online business.
Gove: “The people of this country have had enough of experts”
So that, and the need to kick back against the system that gave you austerity without understanding how the system works, but knowing that it sounds like it knows better than you, gives you the environment in which you believe the facts you want to, irrespective of the evidence. No one honestly believes that the Tories will invest £350 million a week in the NHS when we leave the EU, but it didn’t hurt to keep saying it. I desperately want to believe that David Cameron put his penis in a dead pig’s head, but I know that the story was made up, and, despite emerging evidence to the contrary, people that wanted to believe that Jeremy Corbyn walked past dozens of empty seats in order to be filmed sitting on the floor of the London to Newcastle train, still do.
My facts are indeed better than your facts.
Don’t look down
The challenge was to stop sloganeering for a few minutes. We all want change, but it can be scary, right?
So don’t look down.
If the queen had a hammer
I just don’t get the Royal Family, I really don’t. They even bow and curtsy to each other. It’s just weird and stupid and wrong and what makes them so much better than us that we keep them in the lap of absolute luxury?
The question of whether the queen casts a vote or not (she doesn’t) would be idle musing
Does she have a pound? Well, she famously never carries any money, but her picture is on every last piece of it.
The patriotic working class? Yeah, I know. I didn’t make it up; it’s flag, faith and family stuff like “former Labour heartlands” and “traditional working class values” and the old favourite “metropolitan liberal elite”.
Heroes of the Peasants’ Revolt, Wat Tyler and John Ball get a mention, and rightly so. Let’s not forget Tyler’s big failing that lead to his ultimate downfall. He trusted the Royals.
Children in the crosshairs
Yes, I realise that it’s perverse that you can hear the follow-up to From the euro to the pound before you can hear the first song, but that’s how band stuff works. The Protest Family have adopted From the euro to the pound, so you can hear it live, but we won’t take it into the studio for a while yet, unless there’s pressure to release a single (remember them?). The life of a solo artist is much simpler and more immediate.
Both songs are attempts to see life and events through someone else’s eyes, in this case a couple, no longer together but bound together by their children. We know quite a bit about them from their two songs, but the key thing is that they don’t do politics (even when politics is quite clearly doing them), which means that they’re definitely not me.
I sort of understand Americans’ second amendment rights to bear arms against their government (I just wish they’d get on with it) but, like most non-Americans I really don’t get their gun culture, their obsession with guns or the enormous power of the gun lobby. I’d like to point out all the evidence that less guns equals less deaths by shooting, but we’d just recycle the fake news argument, and we’ve had that already.
Warning: It’s a sad song.
A song for Saint Patrick’s Day
You know it’s not just Cambridge Analytica poring over all the stuff that you put on social media, it’s songwriters too, and when I saw that “somebody on the internet” had posted “Why don’t Irish people celebrate St. George’s Day?”, the blue touchpaper was lit. Your choice, a 1500-word essay on oppression, imperialism and privilege, or a three-minute sing-along folk song?
From the euro to the pound, it’s debt that makes the wheels go ’round.
If my inbox bulged a little with enquiries as to where my Brexit song was, I can only imagine what Billy Bragg’s looked like as he headed out on the Shine A Light tour with Joe Henry. We know his answer now, it’s Full English Brexit, addressing not his own feelings about the outcome of the EU referendum but attempting to deal with the increasing polarisation of British society that the result has brought. In his own words:
“Brexit and Trump are manifestations of the failure to build a society that works for everyone. Both offer answers, but only to their own supporters. I believe that if we are to overcome the mistrust and disdain that has divided us, to take the first steps towards building that inclusive society that reflects both the traditions and diversity of our country, we need to have some understanding about where our opponents are coming from.
My new song “Full English Brexit” was written in that spirit.”
And that’s the thing. I have no intention of re-hashing the longest essay that I ever wrote on social media, my reasons for voting how I did, or your reasons for voting how you did, but the polls suggest that we’re becoming entrenched, people’s opinions are unchanged and unchanging, and how do we progress as a society when the 48% are writing the 52% off as racists and the 52% are complaining that the 48% are just bad losers? So I’m with Billy here, our response as artists needs to be about building bridges and understanding, and re-discovering our common cause.
To be honest, the whole of the next album was written in the shadow of Brexit. That is to say the shadow of the outcome of the referendum, not the shadow of leaving the EU, which we haven’t even done yet, and it’s presence is felt obliquely in several of the new songs. To deal with what I wanted to deal with meant more of a departure for my songwriting though. The funny-but-true lampooning of people with power, staying true to the axiom of always punching up, wasn’t going to work here.
“Welcome to postcapitalism”
Writing characters happened almost accidentally. Having written a verse and most of a chorus sketching out her life (inspired in part by something that Paul Mason says in PostCapitalism about how “a single mum on benefits, forced into the world of payday loans and buying household goods on credit, can be generating a much higher profit rate for capital than an auto industry worker with a steady job”), I spent a sleepless night wondering where the father of her children had got to. Getting up with the second verse already written in my head, I got it down on paper and thought about where I wanted to go next.
My intention was to make some more general points about debt and the EU which made Greece the obvious setting, but the characters weren’t letting go, and the third verse became her memories of a family holiday in better times. The fourth wrote itself moments later and wrapped up the tale, such as it is, in one line.
They don’t have names yet, this couple. I don’t know if they ever will, but I do know a great deal about them: their looks, attitudes, character, and some of their past. I feel as though I’ve got to know them as they’ve written themselves, with a little help from me.
I have no tune to share with you at the moment. There is one, but I’ll let The Protest Family work their magic on it before setting it free. I can, however, let you have a read of the lyrics:
She drops her eldest at school Old enough to remember when her dad still lived at home Sticks the younger in her buggy In no kind of hurry as she wheels her into town Looking for another payday loan A bit of credit for her phone Looking for a stay of execution While she finds a solution For the payments on the washing machine Before the money’s all gone
But she’s the engine of the economy She’s the grease in the machine Every fiver that she borrows Is a tenner on a banker’s screen Forget about productivity In a greed-based society From the euro to the pound It’s debt that makes the wheels go round
It was a decent enough job Until redundancy came his and his mates way It’s easy to blame the migrant worker When you’re called a shirker by the paper that you buy every day Looking for someone else to blame Drinking away his pain But when the words won’t come But the punches will It’s the ones you love Who are standing in the way
Now he’s the engine of the economy He’s the grease in the machine Every fiver that he borrows Is a tenner on a banker’s screen Forget about productivity In a greed-based society From the euro to the pound It’s debt that makes the wheels go round
There was that holiday in Greece They had a bit of money for a place in the sun, if only for two weeks They were better times She wonders about the people that they met in foreign climes Looking for some happy memories But the pictures on the TV Say they’re struggling And just as broken As she feels on days On days like these
They’re the engine of the economy They’re the grease in the machine Every fiver that they borrow Is a tenner on a banker’s screen Forget about productivity In a greed-based society From the euro to the pound It’s debt that makes the wheels go round
There was that holiday in Greece He had a bit of money to take the family to the beach They were happy times And the people that they met all seemed fine Looking for the reason it all changed Still looking for someone to blame In all the wrong places In all the wrong faces And wondering Is she still the same?
They’re the engine of the economy They’re the grease in the machine Every fiver that they borrow Is a tenner on a banker’s screen Forget about productivity In a greed-based society From the euro to the pound It’s debt that makes the wheels go round
I think it’s fair to say, looking back on it now that we had an amazing Tolpuddle performing as Maddy Carty & The Protest Family and as Workers Playtime, plus the almost-part-of-the-Tolpuddle furniture Unplugged session, and obligatory selfies with Jeremy Corbyn. I was going to write something about Tolpuddle Unplugged. In fact I still might, but suffice to say that every year I worry that it’s going to be a disaster, and every year it’s the opposite. I might have even figured out how it works, or at least I think so. The premise is ridiculous: Run a stage at a small but popular festival with no budget, no acts or amplification. Where do you start? Well, give it to a couple of chancers from an East London folk/punk band who’s main talent appears to be making friends, and chuck them into a field full of like-minded people who’ve stepped out of the struggle for the weekend to enjoy each other’s company while imagining a better, fairer world. It seems to work somehow.
Tolpuddle Unplugged: I think I know which side they’re all on.
The band has, though, been quiet since the summer, some of it planned and some unplanned. In a fallow year for Protest Family albums, you may have expected a solo effort from me, along the lines of somethingweirdgoingoninmyhead or Check Your Stereo. Well, the new songs are coming, a bit slower maybe, but there’s some work on it’s way that I’m already quite proud of, even before the rest of the band get their mucky paws on it and work their magic. You might have got some titbits from social media when I’ve got impatient and stuck myself in front of a live camera, or on YouTube where I’ve parked some sketches of songs where they’re easy for Doug, Lol and Russ to find, or if you’ve caught me giving some songs a run-out on my solo travels.
The Crematorium is of course the most immediately pressing message to get out there, but the song’s not going to go away, anymore than the Justice4Grenfell campaign will. We did knock up a terrific version of it for Tolpuddle with Robb Johnson on lead guitar and Maddy Carty’s amazing backing vocals, but the regular Protest Family line-up’s version is yet to be unveiled. Expect to hear it on November 14th at Ye Olde Rose & Crown as we raise money for striking workers at Whipps Cross Hospital.
Although The Death of Facts has been around since I played it at Punk 4 The Homeless in Nottingham last year, it’s not on the band’s radar yet, but I think it will be eventually. What is coming up soon (see above for when soon is) are Protest Family versions of Supersonic (using supersonic passenger flight to demonstrate that progress isn’t linear) and Han Solo (using the films of Harrison Ford to talk about consent. A chat that the actual Harrison Ford could’ve done with, by all accounts).
There’s enough love out there for If The Queen Had a Hammer that I think there will be a band version of it and, although I’m yet to share it with them, I think there’s a future for my song about Frank Turner (cheekily titled Thatcher Fucked The Kids) too. However my Blue Labour anthem Flag, Faith, Family & Fried Chicken may well fall by the wayside. It’s funny, true (look them up) and in the Protest Family style, but I think I’m tiring of it before it’s crossed the finish line. Maybe a new arrangement will give it a new lease of life. We’ll see.
Also queuing up to hit your ears is a Steve White/Russ Chandler collaboration called Winter of Discontent. Featuring Shakespeare’s Richard III re-cast as a trade union leader in the dying months of the Callaghan government, it’s the first time that I’ve put anything out there in iambic pentameter. The song will feature on a winter-themed compilation with a worldwide distribution deal* very soon. I’ll point you in the right direction when it comes out.
So, there’s songs, there’s big ideas, but maybe a lack of a vehicle to get them to you. Yes, gigs are a little thin on the ground but we do have a cunning plan or two, so (WATCH THIS SPACE).
Steve
*Everybody with an internet connection and an upload button’s got one.
We first met Maddy Carty about two years ago. We were both playing for the Show Culture Some Love campaign. The Family were struck by her remarkable, strong yet vulnerable voice and sophisticated modern soul-based songs. We immediately suggested her to play at the Matchwomen’s Festival a few months later.
During a rehearsal (yes, we do rehearse), we were trying Right To Strike (from Drums Ruin Everything). It didn’t sound quite right. Someone suggested that it might sound good with a female voice doing harmony, like… Maddy Carty. We warmed to the idea that she might play keyboards on it too. A few days later, she agreed. More than that, she really wanted to perform Have I Got News For You with us. By the time we met up, she was playing on four songs. She joined us on stage at the Matchwomen’s Festival in July – and it was fun. We did it again at the Leytonstone Festival the following week. A couple of months later, Steve and Maddy did a couple of songs together in central London.
Steve and Maddy (Pic: Paul Rutland)
Meanwhile, a new movement had been brewing. It was We Shall Overcome: hundreds of gigs across the country on the same weekend, protesting against austerity, and raising money and collecting food for those hardest hit by it. We wanted to do something special for that – but what? Well, who else would we call? So in October, Maddy Protest joined us for our entire set at the Rose & Crown for Walthamstow Folk’s contribution to the weekend. It was a great night with an enthusiastic crowd, but…
Discussing it afterwards, we felt that something was a bit off. Was it Doug’s socks? No, not this time. It boiled down to this: we had used Maddy as a piano player and a backing vocalist. Now, don’t get me wrong. She’s fine as a piano player. She’s fine as a backing vocalist. But she’s got so much more. She was easily the best singer present on stage that night (sorry, Doug), but her terrific voice was always in the background. Also, she’s a very strong songwriter, but we played none of her songs at all. She was happy to play that night, but on reflection it seemed to us to be a bit of an insult to her talents.
Fast forward to 2016. We had a better idea: how about having Maddy join us properly for a one-off gig? This time, she could back us on some of our songs – and we would back her on some of hers. But she let us down badly, pointing out that she was getting married on the day that we’d planned for the performance. How selfish can you get?
Marriage: selfish
Now it’s 2017 (check your phone if you don’t believe me) and we’ve forgiven her for that snub. It’s finally going to happen. On Sunday 16th July at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival in Dorset, Maddy Carty & The Protest Family will take to the stage. It’s going to be different. Come and join us.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a confession or something I am ashamed of. This is something that I shout from the rooftops , like all Orient fans .
Us Orient fans are used to ridicule from fans of richer clubs, some of whom think a crisis is when their team has not made the later stages of the European Championships (whatever they are) . NO, I am an Orient fan and proud. Here is a club that apart from one season in the toppermost of the poppermost league has always struggled against its more successful neighbours.
Steve and my goodself
I saw my first Orient game in 1969 with my Dad. Orient got a pretty uneventful 1-1 draw with Torquay. My Dad and I would go to about one or two games a year until the mid 70’s when I started to come to games on a regular basis with school mates . That is where regular football started for a lot of us, with mates.
To be honest, over the years the socialising has been more fun than the football , but that is not really the point. It’s a bit like waiting for a bus (no not THAT analogy) you have been waiting so long for the bus to come that you cannot leave the bus stop in case the bus finally comes along. (This analogy too has its problems as most stops have those electric thingys that tell you when the next bus comes along , but that is progress. Anyway, I digress). It’s like waiting for a win or a side that we can have confidence in. I used to go to Arsenal as a teenager one week and Orient the next week. A win at Arsenal was expected no matter who they played and the fans left in relief (they probably still do).At Orient a win is greeted with delight as it is not expected, it is hoped for and so the pleasure is more .
Lol giving it some (err) Lol
I recently said at a LOFT meeting that the people you meet in life is comparable to the film Sliding Doors . Without Orient, mine and other fans lives would have been different .
I had personal issues in 2009 and it was my Orient family that got me through it with support and love. In 2012 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and again it was my Orient friends that I turned to for support, love and encouragement.
Without Orient, I would not have met my wonderful and supportive wife Sarah, because we met at a wedding of an Orient fan.
Leyton Orient truly is more than a football club. It’s a common thread running through all our lives, binding us together.
The Protest Family would not exist without Orient . The original line up of Myself , Lol Steve and Rory, met through following the Os.
It’s only a quid
There is a story to tell on how this band got together and that will be for another time , but being in The Protest Family has opened more doors (or is it a train carriage, beginning to regret the Sliding Doors analogy now) to new friendships and experiences that I am eternally grateful for.
In 2000 myself and a few other Os fans thought about starting some kind of fans group as we felt that our voices were not being heard in the game but specifically at the Orient. The more we looked into it the more we found that there was an appetite among fans all over the country for the same thing. At this very time, an organisation was being formed called Supporters Direct, under the leadership of the wonderful Brian Lomax, that would be an umbrella for all Trusts .
With their advice and guidance we were one of the very first trusts launched in 2001. Now the Trust movement has moved not just beyond football but beyond the UK. As the song says we were ‘In the right place , at the right time’
I am one of two founder members that have been on the LOFT (Leyton Orient Fans’ Trust) Board since the start and I have been Chair since 2002. It remains something I am very passionate about, as the rest of the Protest Family will tell you, especially on long car journeys .
LOFT formed to give fan’s a voice in the running of OUR football club, be a critical friend to the OUR club and to be there in case of a crisis.
And that is where we find ourselves at this very moment
LOFT have launched a Regeneration Fund , details here savetheorient.com
If you are reading this before Saturday 1st April you can see us with Brighton fan Attila The Stockbroker who offered his help to the Save The Orient campaign as soon as he heard about it and local legend (and Brentford fan) Graham Larkbey. Details here https://www.facebook.com/events/353102875087017
best to keep an eye on our Facebook page for availability
If you are reading this after Saturday 1st April, you missed a great gig
Solidarity brothers and sisters (HAST)
Doug Protest
x
A picture of fellow LOFT member Russ ,in case he feels left out
When I looked through my diary it turned out that there was a bit more in it than I’d remembered. I thought it had been a quiet year on the music front, too quiet in fact, and when it comes to the Protest Family that’s undoubtedly true, but I did play a lot more solo, and solo unplugged than I have done for some time.
Actually, Robb features a lot in this year’s highlights. The launch of 
And so I sat down to write Where Tina Goes. Romantic as that sounds, it wasn’t at some antique writing desk, or in a room with great natural light and a pretty view, it was on the 06-something Chingford to Liverpool Street train for the first day of a course I was on.
Steve White & The Protest Family 