Me: “I thought we’d have sold more advance tickets by now.”
The band: “Well, the poster you designed isn’t very good.”
Me: “You didn’t say anything at the time.”
The band: “Yes, but it’s not very good, is it.”
Now we all know that an appraisal should be a shit sandwich; say something nice at the beginning and the end, fill the middle with your criticism. Next time, perhaps we should try:
Me: “I thought we’d have sold more advance tickets by now.”
The band: “Actually ticket sales are encouraging this far from the date of the show, but the poster you designed isn’t very good.”
I first saw Attila the Stockbroker’s new-look Barnstormer playing semi-unplugged* in The Schooner in Southwick and it was such a great show that I caught up with it again at the Dublin Castle a few days later. It genuinely is early music meets punk, with recorders, crumhorms, cornamuses, guitar, bass and drums and songs about the English civil war, ranters, levellers and fiery flying roll Abiezer Coppe. (And you really need to hear about him!).
So we’re really pleased to bring the show to Walthamstow, complete with The Protest Family in support and a bonus spoken word set from Attila.
You can get advance tickets from WeGotTickets or if you’re local there are some for sale behind the bar in Ye Olde Rose & Crown. Or, if you think you’re likely to bump into me between now and then, I’ve got a few for sale too.
Don’t miss this one……
Steve
*Well, you’ve got to plug in a bass guitar somewhere really.
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.
Alright, so Burston’s the scene of the longest running strike in this country’s history. The Burston tale is one of militant teachers, nasty bosses, a pantomime villain power-hungry preacher, the kids showing extraordinary solidarity and mettle, and the trade union cavalry charging over the hill to save the day. You might have bought a brick at Brisbane Road but Tolstoy sponsored one in the Strike School.
The sun shone on this year’s rally, the queues for selfies with Corbyn were long*, the ones at the bar appealingly shorter and we had a great time despite me breaking a string AGAIN. It was great fun too to join Attila the Stockbroker at the end as invited** backing singers on Prince Harry’s Knob. I’m not sure he was expecting the harmonies.
The Corbynmania thing’s a bit weird. We’re all behind JC for obvious reasons but it’s odd seeing him whisked in by car and surrounded by pink-jacketed Unite stewards when you’re used to seeing him just turn up on the bus with everybody else.
I did write about him recently, so if you’re thinking about writing a song about how the whole of the mainstream press, all of the BBC’s politics department and most of his own party appear to be against him despite his enormous public popularity, in the style of Kent Walton commentating on tag-team wrestling, to a country and western themed sound track, don’t worry I’ve got you covered. I even used a line from Tag Team Time in a Facebook status update about Jeremy’s late addition to the Strike School Rally’s line-up of speakers.
You’ll get to hear Tag Team Time (plus our tribute to the Punk Waltham Forest tributes) if you manage to get along to our StowFest gig next week.
Failing that, Lol and I are out being pop-up folk-punks at a Corbyn-supporting show at Nambucca on Wednesday, I’m in Nottingham on October 7th and then it’s all systems go for my birthday bash on October 15th.
So, see you out there somewhere.
Steve
* We didn’t get one, we’ll have to settle for my picture with John McDonnell from the Redbridge Momentum meeting.
Writing this after an amazing gig at The Wanstead Tap with Attila The Stockbroker and Janine Booth.
I do not believe in God or Karma or any of that other whacky stuff, so I will put all of this down to coincidence. But nice coincidence.
In 2010 on this weekend, we played a packed gig with Mr Stockbroker at the much missed Plough in Wood Street , Walthamstow.
We managed to get Attila to play with us thanks to the O’s having a home game against his beloved Brighton. Brighton got a lucky 1-1 draw on the day so we were all happy.
Sadly for us, the idea of playing against them now is a pipe dream , thanks to mismanagement by the powers that be at LOFC BUT WE ARE NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT THAT!!
A year ago this weekend three of the Protest Family (clue, the one who plays the spoons was absent) went to Centre Parcs Longleat for Sonja Pedersen’s (Beryl T Peril) wake. The difference being that Sonja was still alive against all odds. That is how Sonja rolled .
I often go on about the time we played Derry and how defining that weekend was, but last year’s bash surpassed that.
We got there at about 1pm to be greeted with beer, wine and food and we set up our equipment. We started playing from that moment and apart from toilet and pizza breaks continued until God knows when (I am thinking it was about 3am the next morning).
The place was buzzing, apart from us there was also Paddy Nash and Diane Greer from the amazing Paddy Nash & The Happy Enchiladas, Les Black and Grace Petrie. This was all in a really packed chalet in Centre Parcs. For me, the highlights were us all doing The Band’s The Weight and all of that lot playing while I sang Billy Braggs To Have And to Have Not.
So (I dislike sentences that start with SO, but still) it came to pass that last night’s gig happened to have many people from far and wide that were at Centre Parcs a year ago this weekend. Nothing was arranged , it just happened . Synchronicity as The Police sang (although I prefer Invisible Sun).
It was nice to see people who I last saw at Sonja’s funeral in a different atmosphere. Sonja is in all of our hearts and will continue to be so.
A word about last night’s gig. Attila was as Attila is. Great fun , but behind that, giving his audience food for thought. You must also catch Janine Booth. She is getting better and better with each gig that I see her. She gets the balance right between her humour and seriousness in her poetry.
And a word for The Wanstead Tap. It is a great place with great people running it with great ales.
Doug Protest
Solidarity brothers and Sisters ( I always say that)
From picket lines to private parties, it’s been an interesting year for the Protest Family. Gigs for workers on indefinite strike at both Lambeth College and the National Gallery turned into celebrations at the successful conclusion of their disputes; UCU members fighting off new contracts for existing staff and the National Gallery strikers winning on all of their demands except privatisation of the gallery, including re-instatement of their union rep Candy Unwin.
Singing Bad Day For Bojo over and over again outside Leytonstone station may not have halted the tide of Boris Johnson’s ticket office closures but an early start on the RMT/ASLEF picket line did see the network brought to a standstill along with the mayor’s plans to push through the introduction of the Night Tube. We all want the tube to run all night, let’s hope that now we can have it safely, and delivered by workers whose work/life balance is protected by well-negotiated contracts.
Both private parties were wakes, one for a comrade who was already dead, the other for the woman who stuck around long enough to have two living wakes a year apart and one more Tolpuddle Festival than she thought she was going to get. We lost Sonja in September, a great friend, an indefatigable campaigner and a great advocate of the band. She badgered Billy Bragg ceaselessly on our behalf and the ultimate fruits of her labour may yet still be to be seen.
Festival sound engineers ranged from the nonchalant to the point of not caring in Plumstead to the brilliantly professional at Rhythms Of The World in Hitchin to the absolutely nothing is too much trouble of Matt from Wilding Sound in Walthamstow who helped us out so much at this year’s Matchwomen’s Festival. Festival weather had its ups and downs too, glorious sunshine in Canning Town but an absolute soaking for our audience in Hitchin who were at least treated to the rain stopping by the end of our set.
Two gigs at The Sov this year (one unplugged) was bettered by three We Shall Overcome gigs. Well for me and Doug at least, as we provided the opening entertainment at We Shall Overcome What’s Cookin’ on the band’s day off between gigs at the Bread & Roses and Ye Olde Rose & Crown. That’ll make three gigs at the Leytonstone Ex-Servicemen’s Club too if you count that one along with An Evening Of Radical Entertainment for the Leytonstone Festival in July and the Christmas What’s Cookin’ show with Graham Larkbey & The Escape Committee.
How we got the whole of The Protest Family, The Escape Committee and former member Rory on stage for the encore at What’s Cookin’ I’ll never know. However my favourite stage invader this year has to be Attila The Stockbroker who joined us on fiddle at this year’s Stowfest gig and exclaimed “I wish I’d thought of that” from the side of the stage during George of The Jungle so loud that the whole room heard. We even got him to play Sean Thornton with us.
We’ve got high hopes for George of The Jungle now that we’ve got a recording and accompanying video for it, but we’re wide-eyed naifs in the world of Getting Your Thing To Go Viral. We’re sharing it with everyone we can think of, but we don’t have industry chums or influential pals and we’re dubious about the ethics of the whole world of plugging, not that we have a budget anyway. So it’s a wing and a prayer, a lot of hard work behind the scenes with little idea of it’s value, and a We’ll See. Pay Your Tax got a few thousand views on YouTube quite early on then came to a massive standstill. Who knows what George of The Jungle will do?
But this is supposed to be a round-up of our year. Unplugged at The Sov might have been unplanned, but this was the year that we found our unplugged voice. It’s how we rehearse, but we’d not really pulled it off successfully until last year’s birthday party. This year the unplugged Family’s had a few outings: Show Culture Some Love at Congress House, Hove Folk Club, and of course on the picket line. It’s been very rewarding to do and it’s definitely another string to our bow.
So, more unplugged in 2016, more gigs out of town (watch out Glossop!) and more banjo (maybe). There’s a new album in us too, we’ve nearly got all the songs. Hopefully we’ll do that next year too.
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 
Steve White & The Protest Family 