Nick Weldon

On being 68

2022-03-21T22:56:00.000+00:00

It's been lovely to hear from so many friends and colleagues on my birthday - thank you all for your good wishes...

68 years old. It's an achievement, but the number fills me with trepidation. My stepfather and first jazz (and food) mentor Ron Weldon died at this age. And I learn via Facebook numerologists that the start dates of all world wars, including the current one, add up (with some 'finessing') to 68, that 6+8 =14, 1+4 = 5, and that 5 can be unlucky. In China.

Also, as a keen bus child in London, I confess I never cared for the 68. Yes, in theory, it went all the way from Chalk Farm in the North to Herne Hill in the deep South, and this was exciting. But in reality the Euston to Chalk Farm leg was a despised and neglected outer limb that eventually withered and died. I liked the 24 well enough, for Pimlico, and also the 31, for Notting Hill, and the 53 (Blackheath to Camden Town) was spectacular, but I went off it one Saturday after they kicked us all off at Oxford Circus, and I had to rollerskate the last few miles home in a heatwave.

My favourite by far was the 74, which took you from Camden Town, past the Zoo, down through Baker St, Marble Arch, Knightsbridge, Kensington and Fulham, and all the way to Putney, where my real father Colyn Davies lived with his girlfriend Jean and her parents. I'd get this bus most weekends to go and visit them, and the conductors all knew me and kept an eye out for me, as I was only 8, and travelling alone.

On the other hand, going back to China, 5 is the number of stones in weight I have lost since my BP episodes in 2017 (BP = Blood Pressure AND Bell's Palsy - surely no coincidence!), so maybe 68 (6+8 =14, 1+4 = 5) isn't such a bad age after all. I'd like to go as far as 5.5, but I'll stop before 6, even though this would represent a third of my previous body weight, because this would represent the number 69 (6+9 = 15, 1+5 = 6). My real father Colyn died at that age. I have a vague memory of a trip on a 69 bus, but no strong feelings either way about it.

70, 71 and 72 are unknown quantities, and 73 was always an unremarkable central journey, so I'll be in touch again in 2028, when I shall look forward to being 74.

After Putney Colyn and Jean moved out to Wimbledon, and this meant a change to another bus, so I'll be posting again in 2047. I should be 93 by then.

On Musicians

2016-01-11T23:01:00.000+00:00

If you're thinking of acquiring a musician
With whom to kiss, or even settle down
Please peruse this handy information
To save yourself a future sorry frown

Though musos share the guilty look of sound
And may not from afar be told apart
Each instrument attracts a special nature
And you must know which suits your special heart

Music is a window into heaven
Musicians are the ones who clean the glass
Before you let one up inside your jumper
Let me introduce the species brass

The trumpet is the warrior king of gesture
His call to you so loud and strong and bright
A golden coil attached to an intestine
Twisted in the stress of being right

The trombone is an unknown civil servant
Dedicated to an unknown art
No-one ever sees or knows or hears him
Unless he rip his virtuoso fart

The sad ungainly beauty of the tuba
Should you admit and let to chime
Ponderoso, growing old together
You will know the tragedy of time

Tenor horn, euphonium, cornet
These and other brass I've sorely missed
Will be with the others in the boozer
Brutal brusque and blue, and surely pissed

Pianists are busy bods, and brainy
They claim to read your mind with magic braille
Remember, as their fingers play your body
You, for them, are just another funny scale

Organists are truly jugglemeisters
Multitaskers, yes, par excellence
They can take a complex set of actions
And fuck them up completely, all at once

Have you met the grumpy jazz violinist?
He won't play that new electric thing
Believes he's failed because of natural quietness
Instead of lack of natural swing

Guitars are frozen adolescents
Afterimages of mirrors lost
Seek ye bendy wraith seduction
In such burning stringy frost?

Double basses, just like eager housewives
Starting with a keen and willing smile
Change in time as they are held for granted
Now their sweetness turns to raging bile
Now they pull and pluck in mute defiance
Reach for highs when all cry out for lows
Fury at their past submission
Drives the basses ever to oppose

Would you touch the seismic flow of drummers
Would you lead a whole life on the tiles
Know they'll need a practice room and lodging
Know they come in two contrasting styles

One a sister, therapist, inclined by fate
To amplify your every feeling shade
In wispy dreamy brushy sweeps
And clatter shreds, a rhythmic marmalade
In which the soul exposure never ceases
That must be you, those bits and pieces.

Not all drummers are as nice as this
Beware the stern reproachful patriarch
Using all his paradiddle-daddles
Just to show you up, below the mark

The banjo is the sacred instrument
Held aloft by the Lady of the Lake
It was brought from Africa many moons ago
And this was mankind's first mistake

The second was a hybrid made
Of clarinet and ophicleide
This hideous girl, the saxophone
Grew up to live as Satan's bride
If you like to date those 'on the spectrum'
Then saxists must be your first choice
With their weird jazzperger patterns
And their strangled monotone voice
This mutant breed is expressive -
The bark and the howl and the squawk
Are the the closest we'll get, as humans
To hearing the animals talk

We live in a soundtrack of cosmic noise
Of fluttering garbage adrift
The flute has the musak of the spheres
And we are all stuck in the lift

The outlook may seem to be gloomy
But here is a glimmer of light
A singer has recently entered the place
With trousers refreshingly tight
Whose song without complication
Yet explains the meaning of all
And your mind grows dim and your body soft
And you leave your senses and fall
Inside the velvet truthful sound
Where symbols s-shaped shimmer shake and roll
Reveal the the inner science of the soul
And recreate you, brain and face unlined
No singer question in your mind
No thought of choices right and wrong
Your one remaining need to be the song

To be the song

Driving Me Crazy

2010-06-29T12:06:00.009+01:00

Last night I dreamed a wonderful thing. It was good news for musicians. Tucked away in the fine print of the Coalition Budget was innovative Arts and Culture legislation reclassifying the musician as a haulage contractor. Yes! We’ve known it for years and now it’s official. Music is a driving job.

I used to be a bass player, and now I’m a long distance Crotchet haulier. I’m excited just thinking of the service station perks - shower facilities, sleepover parking, meal deals. Mmm, I pondered, as I loaded the music into the Volvo this morning, I’ll definitely have the double gutbuster as a main, but what then? Shall I have the key lime pie, or the hunk of mature cheddar and biscuits, or the hunk of mature hooker in the lorry park?

Golly, look at the time! I wouldn’t be stopping at all if I didn’t get a shift on. So difficult to know what to take on these jobs. A country wedding, I was told, with just two hours on site delivery time, but no tempo variation chart or indication of repertoire was given, so I had no way of predicting what sort of Crotchets I’d need, or how many. In the end I took them all, just to be sure, making room by chucking out all the Quavers I’d already packed. Never much call for them, anyway. At the last minute, on a hunch, I squashed in a box of Minims and then a pair of G Pedals. You could never tell when you might need one of those.

It should have been an easy journey, ninety motorway miles in the middle, with fifteen miles of good A road at either end. But what with the speed restrictions, forty and fifty all the way down the M1 and round the M25, and heat-induced prangs clegging up the roadworks, and all the sat navs conking out in the heat so all the arses in the world were driving round in circles looking for their elbows, it was three and a half hours before I got to the lovely West Sussex barn.

“Where have you been?” shouted the vocalogistics person as I wrung myself out of the car. “Typical of you lot. Moan on and on until I put your money up, then you’re late anyway! I hope you’ve brought the right stuff, at least? Last lot of Crotchets we had were all different sizes. No use to anyone!”

I made some reassuring noises about commitment to vocalist satisfaction, ability to work with other contractors, and Crotchet quality control. “Hmmmph!” he declared. “There are plenty of Bulgarians out there who’ll do twice the Crotchets at half the price. Don’t know why I bother with you lot!”

Someone should tell him that the Bulgarians were cheap for a reason. Their Crotchets were in fact Quavers stuck together, and in odd numbers, to boot. If they set down a load in 13/8 you’d get 6 Crotchets, but you’d keep getting left with a spare Quaver. So it was a false economy, in the long run. Also the Bulgarians sped up uncontrollably, everyone knew that, so even if you thought you were getting twice as many, you were always running out.

Oh no! There was a vehicle I recognised, from a firm I dreaded working with. The lettering on the side said it all. “Long Distance Piano. No Cluster too small. Specialists in Random Chromatics. Time no object.”

As I watched the bearded grunge unload his stacks of Upper Structures, my heart sank. Where would I put my long fat Crotchets? Then I spotted my old mucker Basher Bates unloading his Paradiddles and Skip Beats and I smiled, because me and Basher always had fun together, whatever interference we got from the piano.

How did the gig go? Well, it went. We all arrived late, but still started on time. There were enough Crotchets to go round, and I used every Minim in the box and both of the G Pedals. No-one seemed to notice the absence of Quavers, the vocalist calmed down, the clients got married and were happy, and we had fun and got paid.

It’s now 9.30 pm. I’m sitting in stationary traffic on the M1, thirty miles from home. How has my first day been, overall, in the haulage industry? Here’s the breakdown:

Crotchet Delivery at Venue...2 hours

Crotchet Loading(either end).2 hours

Time on Road (no stops)......8 hours (still counting)

Total..12 hours

Fuel Costs................. £30

Meal costs (no time to eat)..£0

Car Depreciation
(Vehicle is worth nothing)...£0

Job Fee......................£150

Profit..£120

Heck, that’s £10 an hour! Nearly twice the minimum wage. I‘m doing really well. Of course I did have to work continuously for twelve hours with no meals to achieve this privileged rate, and in the Big Account Book in the Sky I’d have to allocate some of this profit to the setup costs, you know, the thousands of hours of training required for basic Crotchet delivery, but down here on the ground things look pretty good.

So I’m chuffed with the Coalition, overall. If my dream is anything to go by, I think they’ll make a real difference to the life of the Artist.

Tell you what, though. Tomorrow I’m leaving twice as early, so I can get some of those haulage perks. Might even leave the night before.

© Nick Weldon June 2010

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ENGLAND!

2010-06-22T14:25:00.001+01:00

THE ENGLAND WORLD CUP SQUAD 2010

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Swingin' the Blues

2010-05-31T23:03:00.001+01:00

Mainstream Jazz Day with Malcolm Earle Smith was great! Check out the first video on YouTube - Swingin' the Blues

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Greek Song

2010-05-10T11:58:00.004+01:00

Check out the video on YouTube!

GREEK SONG

Amid the global turmoil of the early 21st Century, with the Nations of the World ravaged by War, Famine, Terror and Slump, millions of small personal stories played themselves out to an audience of one. These we are happy to forget.

But let us now begin to remember the strange tale of one Dozee Raasclaat, Poet Laureate of England, just as we have always remembered the apple of Harold’s eye, the arrow falling from the tree, and the wart on Jenkins’ ear.

A culture of drug, alcohol and burger abuse, combined with the softening of the brain synapses from prolonged exposure to pap, had created a huge surge in dementia. We began to be old much younger; so much so, they say, that forty was the new eighty. Care Homes were in crisis. They could not cope with the influx of the new geriatrics, nor with their lifestyle. For this generation of wrinklies had been raised on MDMA, Hip Hop and Vodka Red Bulls, and had little interest in Jigsaw Puzzles, Val Doonican or Horlicks.

Enter Dozee Raasclaat. In an inspired stroke of the turntable, this gifted poet transformed the frenetic hustle of Grime into something sexy and beautiful; a new beat for a new time.
He called his music Dubcrip.

yeah man, slow it down
slow it down
know what I’m sayin’
know what I’m sayin’

Narrow-minded critics and prudes attacked him; he had enemies among the Establishment. But none could stand against the wave of love that flowed towards Dozee Raasclaat, as he worked tirelessly to bring the rhythms of Dubcrip to every Old Peoples Home in the country. Soon the man they called the Jolly Rapper was made Poet Laureate.

As quickly as he rose, he also fell.

Here is how it happened, in his own words....

let’s slow it down, man
let’s slow it down
know what I’m sayin’
know what I’m sayin’

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
My operation is hip
My name is Dozee Raasclaat
My music is Dubcrip

They’re wiggin’ it and diggin’it
Where the Jolly Rapper roam
Cos it’s slimy and it’s grimy
Like a Old Peoples Home

Me cyaan believe they ‘cuse me
O’ corrup wrinklies wid me rhyme
It’s their last bit o’ sex an’ violence
Before they run out of time

I am the Poet Laureate
Soon I should be knighted
Me cyaan believe that Englan’
Wan let me be extradited

Judges call me evil
And traitor to the Crown
It’s because the lady love Dubcrip
That’s why they wan’ bring me down

They don’ like me rappin’
It goes against their grain
They don’ like sexy music
I know you know what I’m sayin’

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip

All them TV people
Don’ know what they’re talking ‘bout
This is how it happen
Straight from the donkey’s mouth

The Acropolis nightclub
Wan’ me for a guest
To play my Dubcrip music
They know I am the best

So I’m chillin’ and swillin’
With a cold beer and sarnie
The sun is very hot
An’ I fancy some punani

An I’m chattin’ wid a lady
Who wan’ see me decks
An’ I offer her some Es
In return for oral sex

Den her bruvver come at me
Give me grief for a full minute
He cuss me mum and sister
So I cut his head off, innit?

I excape the club security
Like fallin’ off a log
But before I leave the country
I rape the lady’s dog

Payback for her family
For lack of politesse
That’s why I done the poodle
An’ left the bruvver in a mess

But this poodle was a mongrel
An’ a slapper on the sly
She would drop her panties
In the blinkin’ of an eye

An ‘she goes blinkin’ an’ droppin’, droppin’ an’ blinkin’
Over and over again
Now poodles don’ have panties
But I know you know what I’m sayin’

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip

Because o’ my drug history
I ‘ave a bad case o’ HIV
An’ so do all the dogs in Greece
All because o’ me

Now this little nugget here
I ‘ave it from a vet
A junkie dog owner
Share a needle wid his pet

An’ soon in short order time
His Aids become full blown
His Brain Box ‘ave flown open
His brain cell all ‘ave flown

An’ this man go crackers
When an’ where he wan’
But he was a manager
Of a Nuclear Plant

An’ because o’ all the virus
He get from the poodle bitch
The man become confuse
Wid the button an’ the switch

That was one big explosion
Blew Athens into space
Now God and Mister Plato
Are talkin’ face to face

Nuclear conflagration
Is not insured by Lloyds
An’ all them lickle islands
Turn into asteroids

An’ as for Mister Icarus
The one the sun cremates
He’s unexpectedly joined in ash
By millions of his mates

Me I’m back in Blighty now
Me Auntie’s on the phone
She say ‘Turn on the telly
There’s a hole in the Eurozone’

Me legs are all atremble
It’s exactly what I feared
Me turn on the telly
An’ Greece ‘ave disappeared

Rap rap rap at the front door
The pigs wid their mornin’ knock
Babylon arrest me
Put me under key and lock

But me laughin’ in the courtroom
When they call me the next day
For the Greek legal system
Is in the Milky Way

There’s no way they can get me
There’s no-one to complain
I dispose of all the victims
I know you know what I’m sayin’

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip

But by some European pokery
They jigger me right through
International Tribunal
Or some such motley crew

An’ even though I ‘pologise
For the junkie and his pet
An’ though they owe me big time
For clearing the Greek debt

An’ even spite I change my plea
To musical insanity
The court ‘ave found me guilty
O’ crime against Humanity

An’ now they extradite me
I’m sayin’ Toodle Pip
Me gwaan away a lang lang time
All because the lady love Dubcrip

Anyone like sexy music
Get ready for some pain
The state will victimise you
I know you know what I’m sayin’

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip

Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip

And so we said goodbye to the Jolly Rapper, the man who gave a whole new generation of geriatrics a whole new beat.

As the remains of Greece finally drifted back to Earth, pieces were collected, collated and
reassembled, this time in the form of a gigantic prison island, the first of the Jumbo Jails with which we are now so familiar.

Fittingly, Dozee Raasclaat was the first, and for many years, the only inmate.

But early onset dementia swept through Europe, and gangs of senile pensioners for a while took control of the shops and shires. Eventually military rule restored order, and Platoville (as it came to be known) became the designated home for the hordes of feral fogies made prisoner in the brutal crackdown.

Global warming cheered everyone up, and in this new relaxed atmosphere, Dozee Raasclaat was appointed Head of Music and Rhyme in the Prison City of Platoville. He spent his last years as happily as his first, once again bringing jolly sexy music to the oldtimers of Europe.

“... Know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’
I’m sayin’ my operation is hip
I’m saying my name is Dozee Raasclaat
I’m saying my music is Dubcrip, Dubcrip, Dubcrip....”

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Election Song

2010-04-20T23:35:00.003+01:00

Check out the video on YouTube!

Election Song

Gordon you cowson

You don’t talk for me

You have no idea

What a working man can be

You and your mate Tony

Have turned a new leaf

Made of the Red Flag

A tart’s handkerchief

Cameron you muppet

You can’t pull the wool

You’re more left than Labour

And that’s a load of bull

You’re all rights and fairness

And sharing out the dosh

If you was back in power

We’d be under the cosh

Apart from Vince Cable

The Liberals are a mess

And he’s a lone teabag

In the wilderness

Conservation people

Get right on me wick

The only time I’m green

Is when I’m being sick

I am a member

Of a Party maligned

By joker journos

Of malignant mind

Who misjudge our actions

And misrepresent

Our national pride

And noble intent

A People’s Party

Sons of honest toil

Scraping out a living

From the meagre soil

Foreigners invade

Rulers for a day

We the true people

Will never go away

We fight in the markets

We fight in the hills

We fight for the right

To live from our skills

We fight for our genes

To keep ourselves pure

We fight for our culture

So she may endure

We fight for children

And mothers and wives

The fight for freedom

Defines our lives

I stand before you

A decided man

Come the May Election

I’m voting Taleban

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Duvet Song

2010-03-25T01:03:00.002+00:00

Check out the video on Youtube!

Duvet Song

Here at Chilcot, we work to a very simple plan

To keep the English people as toasty as we can

It’s an ancient technology, brought on the long boats

When the Vikings invaded, in their pink duffel coats

With their snuggly pillows and fluffy eiderdowns

We became so warm to dream, and soothe our Saxon frowns

If we leave one sorrow writ upon History’s final page

‘Twill be that duvets were unknown till after the Ice Age

We let the dinosaurs take power, ceded them the light

While we huddled in our caves, too freezin’ cold to fight

You’ve got me started now, on my high pet hobby horse

I should be in the here and now, not reminiscing with the Norse

We’re in the twenty tens now, the Chilcot clan is keen

We have a new appointment from Her Majesty the Queen

To keep our leaders cosy, this is our commission

To cover their arses in the chill wind of rendition

Special thinking was required, and specialist advice

For duck and goose and derry down no longer would suffice

To heat the blood of Englishmen with murderous chilblains

And frozen hearts, and madness and slush throughout their veins

And Chilcot made a duvet, and according to the logs

We soon achieved a factor of seven million togs

By working in secret and total obedience

And using the finest human ingredients

Our donors are raised in the desert and mountain air

Which explains the high quality of the harvest of hair

And the skin so elastic, the bonemeal so plump

And the flesh so succulent cut from the rump

And the blood and saliva we turn into dyes

And the buttons and poppers we make out of eyes

And zippers constructed from fragments of teeth

And pockets excised from dark corners beneath

On this urgent mission we send our armed forces

To collect these precious human resources

In the Afghan passes, on the dunes of Iraq

The peasants give their lives for the warmth upon our back

They give their wives and children, they give their final breath

All for the Chilcot miracle, the duvet of death

Round here, people like their music in seventeen four

Mostly

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Tyger Song

2010-02-25T23:46:00.002+00:00

Check out the video on Youtube!

Tyger Song

Tiger Tiger in the rough

How many holes will be enough?

What immortal bunker shot

Could stop your gonads getting hot?

How many eagles lifted high

Could distract your roving eye?

How many birdies on green sward

Could make you sheath the old pork sword?

No flag exists you cannot find

Is this done by power of mind?

Or does each pulsing hammer blow

Issue from a realm below?

Tiger Tiger in the rough

Your face is made to polish muff

Thence your cheeks most holy shine

Your perfect round of sixty-nine

You're the one the girls all like

Driven as the balls you strike

Men feel you enrich their lives

Unless by chance you shag their wives

You're the best we've ever seen

Straight and true from tee to green

Your message must not be denied

By second comings multiplied

Tiger Tiger in the rough

You cannot be a powder puff

Your place is in the mad abyss

Not in cosy household bliss

In our ordered neighbourhoods

Your are the monster in the woods

Shred the captain's tidy coat

Eat his nuts, rip out his throat

We watch you, we who are so chaste

With mix of envy and distaste

With horror we admire the beast

But all wouldst gaily share the feast

Drives approaches chips and putts

Merge into the lips and butts

Of women you would some day woo

Hence your aim so straight and true

And many trophies on your shelf

Symbols of your inner self

Of tournaments of sexual fun

Objects once pursued and won

Tiger Tiger under par

Whom you do is what you are

No skill you'd have, or wondrous craft

But for the hands around your shaft

Tiger Tiger in the rough

How many holes will be enough?

What immortal bunker shot

Could stop your gonads getting hot?

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Onion Song - a poem from Oedipus Interruptus, the Jazz Cook

2010-02-14T22:50:00.003+00:00

Check out the video on Youtube!

Onion Song

My mother spoke her love, but not without contradiction

For she was a writer, surrounded by her own fiction

When I was a nipper, imprisoned in my local school

One fine spring day, I was made to appear a fool

It was the time of the daffodil competition

In which I had the hopeful and tender ambition

To have a tall strong yellow flower, to be the best

But my shoot was very tiny, when compared with all the rest

The judges nicely do not laugh, instead they bite their lip

They say "that is an onion bulb, we recognise the tip"

My mother lives in many worlds, and all inside her head

She lost my daffodil, and planted onion in its stead

I left my manhood in the earth, it is such a shame

My shoot is dwarf and shrivelled, my mother is to blame

I have discovered since, my Ma is not so silly

For like the daffodil, the onion is a lily

Asparagus and garlic, and also the shallot

Are also family members, and this explains a lot

Narcissus, the daffodil, stared much into a lake

Obsessed with his appearance, and this was a mistake

For men do not need mirrors, they must find themselves in action

When my mother killed my daffodil, this was a benefaction

For when I found the onion, I also found the route

To be a man, shape the world, however small my shoot

Now I have my restaurant, with its four Michelin stars

My mother has a chateau, and I have thirteen cars

"Don't remain a child", my therapist gave me warning

Now I love onions, and I chop them every morning

All because a little bulb my mother once mistook

I'm Oedipus Interruptus, they call me the Jazz Cook!

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Piggy Song - a poem from your MP

2010-02-12T02:41:00.002+00:00

Check out the video on Youtube!

Piggy Song

I am the MP for Northampton South

My existence is mainly hand to mouth

All the fruits of this wonderful land

Go into my mouth, out of your hand

You scrimp and you save, I know what that means

I use your moolah to butter my beans

I thank the Lord for this garden of earth

I thank him again for the gift of your birth

Too lazy to think, or bother your heads

You just want to drink, and stay safe in your beds

Begrudge me my castle, my KitKats, my moat?

You lurk in allotments, too sluggish to vote

I get to banter and barter and preach

While you dream of futures beyond your reach

I have the power, the glory, the will

You have your leisure, and my hefty bill

I have expenses, they're part of my life

I have horses, and children, and a greedy wife

Her club is Harrods, her tits are divine

As long as there's cash, they will always be mine

She runs the office, employed by the state

To type, make tea, and copulate

She's my PA, my harlot, my friend, and my nurse

Her undies are silk, from the people's purse

I often get lonely, so far from my home

The castle near Scunthorpe, apartment in Rome

Town house in Mayfair, flat in South Ken

I tire of my travels, and now and again

Ski-ing in Verbier, on the beach in Peru

I lay down my snorkel, and I think about you

I'd like to be poor, and hang up my socks

Down by the arches, in my own cardboard box

But my job description is to speak for you plebs

While pounding the flesh of grimy celebs

And cruising the Strand in a luxury car

With cocaine dispensers, and caviar

And boys in white satin, champagne on tap

And cabinet documents deep in my lap

I've read the outlines, no time to read more

Tomorrow is Thursday, we're going to war

Tommy is off on a mission to Hell

He's English and barmy, he does it so well

National Pride has been slipping of late

Soon we must pay him a half decent rate

But this is a cost we shall quickly recoup

By halving his kit, and feeding him soup

The comfort of Tommy is high in our thoughts

We'll send him to battle in T shirt and shorts

As the gunfire rumbles, my belly rumbles too

I wave the people's chequebook, I know just what to do

Hungry little piggy, snozzle in the trough

Snuffle in the truffle, just can't get enough

It's an arrangement of culture and class

You pay for the pleasure of wiping my arse

I salute the Nation, it's you I have to thank

Cos I'm a little piggy, and you're my piggy bank

Posted via email from nick weldon's posterous

Sperm Song - a poem for John Terry

2010-02-02T00:43:00.002+00:00

Check out the video on YouTube!

Sperm Song

Brawl in a Phone Box

2010-01-26T13:13:00.001+00:00

On the way to some work in Cardiff last week, and dropped in at Bristol's WelshBack Club to catch some of the encounter between BristolPro Build and TWP St Georges Hill in the Premier Squash League. The second string match was fascinating - Mohamed El Shorbagy was brilliant, erratic and loopy, while Tom Richards was organised, efficient and deliberate. Shorbagy has been active at a high level on the International Tournament circuit and seemed a bit stiff and tired, but nevertheless has new reserves of pace and quality to fall back on, and this just turned the match in his favour in an entertaining 5-setter. Some of his shots were breathtaking, and one in particular - a topspin backhand volley kill that simply skidded out of the nick!

The final match of the evening, the first string match between Adrian Grant and Daryl Selby, was full of superb squash. There was also, initially at least, humorous banter from Daryl as he teased the officials over their decisions. But Adrian Grant was moving so smoothly, retrieving so well, and applying such consistent pressure, that Selby quickly became tired and frustrated, and began a rather ugly campaign of disruptive let-seeking. Grant was playing well within himself, and should really have won the game in three, but weak refereeing allowed Selby's ridiculous claims of interference to succeed, and he managed to spin it out to four. Time after time, when the ball was buried in the back, Selby contrived to wrap his racquet arm around Grant rather than just going to get the ball. It was blatant gamesmanship, born of fatigue and despair, and only made possible by the indulgence of the referee. Amazingly, Grant kept his cool, and his sense of humour, only once popping out of the court to ask the referee "Haven't you worked it out yet? You're being mugged!". Anyway, he always knew he was going to win.

Normally we're keen for the matches to go on a bit longer, in the PSL seats, but in this case we were all eager to see it over, as it was a depressing and faintly disgusting spectacle. Perhaps that's one of the reasons we'll never get to the Olympics. Yes, squash is not the most televisable spectator sport for those who don't know the game, and that may be one factor working against us. But I suspect that there may be a more compelling argument against us, which is that too many squash matches lack the nobility, dignity and morally uplifting quality demanded by the Olympic ideal, and resemble nothing so much as a brawl in a phone box.

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Idristan

2010-01-26T01:49:00.001+00:00

My dark and hilarious novel Idristan is still for sale on Amazon. Here are some free excerpts. Happy reading!

Bass Beginnings

2010-01-08T00:52:00.004+00:00

Here's a story about how I learned to love the double bass...

Bass Beginnings on YouTube

Posted via email from nick weldon's posterous

Nick's Bass Journal

2010-01-01T16:01:00.001+00:00

Nick's Bass Journal

Tips on working for singers

2010-01-01T15:42:00.001+00:00

Tips On Working For Singers

Bill Le Sage

2010-01-01T15:40:00.001+00:00

Bill le Sage Interview

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T01:19:00.001+00:00

Weather Report

Here is the weather
For the Arts in your area
The outlook is dark
And is getting much hairier

Olympians are cool
Their games need subsidising
The Arts are now iced
And the tide of tosh is rising

Playwrights and poets
Will feel the cold bitterer
Shakespeare's left the room
His replacement is a twitterer

Bands of low pleasure
Bring gig fogs and session mists
Tributes, pastiches,
By foolish impressionists

They've issued for Musos
A severe no gigs warning
Eat dry bread by night
Sing the Blues every morning

My Mum was a Diva
But now they have sacked her
For failing to impress
In the first round of X Factor

So goodbye small jazz clubs
Fare thee well Covent Garden
Philistine New Labour
Is our cultural Bin Laden

With their freezing storm
Of petty legislation
They petrify the Arts
And stupefy the Nation

Artists, that's your lot
You've had your chips, and double!
When the snow is round your ears
Your bollocks are in trouble

Here is the weather
For the Arts in your area
The outlook is dark
And is getting much hairier

Posted via email from nick weldon's posterous

Jazz School UK December update

2009-12-09T02:33:00.002+00:00

The Jazz School UK website has just had its December update. Plenty of information about forthcoming courses, as well as a brand new Jazz Language chart...check it out!

Posted via email from nick weldon's posterous

Hijacked by the Suits

2009-11-30T22:26:00.003+00:00

This is my first post in a new category. I call it 'Hijacked by the Suits'.
Here I will be exploring the many nefarious ways in which artists, musicians, painters, writers, dancers and all, have allowed the channel between creator and devotee to be hijacked by money men. Once upon a time, these art terrorists were content merely to lift 90% of the profit from our creative endeavours, in return for taking care of the annoying business of taking our work to market. But now their power is such that they have insinuated themselves into the heart of the creative process itself, demanding input into plot, character, location, melody, texture and atmosphere as a condition of their huge slice of revenue.
Now we sing write and sculpt only to order, as directed, for otherwise we know our work will remain secret.
We artists, once proud pioneers and seekers of intangible truth, have become lifeless dummies who can speak only the narrow platitudes of our masters.
The ventriloquists have become greedy; we call them the Suits.

Posted via email from nickweldon's posterous

For Jeff

2009-11-26T09:09:00.011+00:00

I don't know if I can speak these words; I know I must try. The tempo is ferocious, the intensity fierce, I don't know if I can solo there, but I know I have to.

Jeff was fearless at such times. If there was music to be played, music in which he believed, then Jeff would always be there. However high the tempo, however low the fee.

He was the same with musicians. If he believed in you, he would be there for you. Fifty years ago, the day before Ronnie Scott opened the Old Place, Jeff was down there painting the walls, so the club could open on time. "How much did they pay you?", I asked him. Two bacon rolls. And he never stopped, was still out there, in his seventies, seeking out musicians that he liked, young and old, making new music happen. Many of us here today, and many more all around the world, only have a life in music because Jeff was our champion, because he walked with us. We meet today to thank Jeff for these gifts.

And to think about the drummers. Sharing a crotchet is one of the closest feelings in human experience, in which we lay bare all we are and everything we could become. This is a harsh moment for the drummers. Above all for Trevor Tomkins, whom Jeff loved dearly, as playing partner and friend, for so long. By my calculations, Jeff and Trevor together played more than fifty million crotchets. Many of them at the same time.

We also remember how grumpy Jeff was. My fondest and most illuminating memories of Jeff are of his grumps. These, although exacerbated by tiredness, traffic, being held back from an important football result, or by lack of food or alcohol, always had a moral dimension. Woe betide anyone who, having accepted Jeff's support at the beginning of a project, then passed him over for the better gigs later on! Jeff's rage in these cases was swift and powerful. There were elements of disappointment and hurt pride in there, of course, but mostly there was moral indignation.

I first felt Jeff's grumpiness as a young tutor, team teaching. Even as I held the middle of the floor, in the corner of my eye I could see Jeff twitching, and I could also hear a strange muttering. Later, with someone else in the middle, I went to stand by Jeff, and heard what he was saying. Come on...come on...get on with it...we've heard it all before...oh yes it's always about you...every effin' time...come on...get off...we've done it now...let's go home... (and, my favourite, when a fellow teacher was explaining a jazz technique)..yes, mate, you should try taking your own bloomin' advice!

Jeff's grumpy mutterings always made me laugh, even when they were about me!

Jeff didn't like ego. He sensed immediately if players and teachers were drifting into self- importance, if they were becoming more interested in how wonderful they sounded than in the job they were supposed to be doing, and his nose would wrinkle up, and then he would be grumpy.

This made Jeff suspicious of words. He loved them but at the same time distrusted them, feared their power to spin and deceive. He hated any talking that made him dwell in the past, holding him back, stopping him from getting on with the next real thing.

Jeff taught me about modesty and pride in my work; he taught me about courage, and freedom, and openness in my playing; he taught me about commitment and loyalty to my friends and to my music. But he never spoke of these things, not in words. He showed them to me, somehow, in his music.

This is very much how Jeff liked to teach. Out in the Colleges, on Summer Schools, and at home in his own front room. He wasn't one for detailed analysis or trenchant criticism; he liked his students to experience the spirit of music by playing. This wordless, experential approach created an intense, intimate atmosphere, in which students felt both protected and liberated. We remember well the day back at Wavendon when, after an especially liberating session of Free Improvisation with Jeff, three singers were admitted to the local Mental Hospital. The doctors suggested that in future Jeff should run these sessions in the Hospital itself, to save on transport costs, but Jeff, always a true professional, simply changed up his course content, and it never happened again.

So many words, yet not the real ones, the ones that are most difficult to say. I can feel Jeff muttering now...come on...get on with it...come on...get off...we've done it now...let's go home...

Stop talking, he means, and get on with the next real thing. But that's the point, isn't it, Jeff has done it, he has gone home, and as for our next real thing, well we don't have one, many of us, because Jeff was part of our real thing, he was going to be out front, leading us with his lovely surefooted lines, and now..well, we're afraid we can't get there on our own.

One image consoles me, and I share it with you.

We are musicians. In our world the most real things are the most ephemeral. Our sounds live and die in the same movement. This is how I shall remember Jeff - as music - as a light, flowing tone who, in his very moment of completion, reveals his beauty and is gone forever.

Nick Weldon

(as spoken at Jeff Clyne's funeral on November 25th 2009)

My Website

2009-11-19T10:56:00.004+00:00

My website is over at www.nickweldon.com

Jazz School UK

2009-11-19T00:04:00.003+00:00

Jazz School UK is the website where you can find details of all the activities we run at the Shoefactory, as well as information about jazz courses and resources in the UK and abroad.

The Birds and the Bees and the Flowers

2009-11-18T23:41:00.005+00:00

Sheila Jordan is one of my alltime favourite singers. Jeff Clyne(dearly departed) was one of my alltime favourite bass players. Sheila has great singing craft and a unique blend of Bebop and Native American influences. But I love her most of all for the deep spiritual centre in her music and for her ability to draw in everything around her as she improvises. One night on tour she chose to extend the intro to Jimmy Webb's beautiful song 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' into a Native American chant with Jeff on double bass. As she did so, miraculously, the sound of a flock of birds entered the room and seemed to join in with the bass and voice, fluttering all round the melody until they found the key (Bb) where Jeff and Sheila were!

The tune is It Had To Be You in the key of G, and as usual Jeff Clyne is fluttering about up at the dusty end. The next chord is E7 and as Jeff begins his beautiful and effortless descent back down the G string, I know instinctively that he will land on a B. Thing is, a bee has also begun to take an interest in the bass and is now sitting exactly where Jeff's first finger is headed for, squarely on that B (bees have great intonation). I begin shouting at Jeff and waving towards the bass, "No, no, not the B, don't play the B!". Jeff finally looks back at his fingerboard, sees the bee and manages to make a diversion to the nearest E. He then shakes the bass,the insect flies off to safety, and we haven't dropped a beat! We laughed a lot together over that, in a slightly mystified way, and in the last few weeks of his life it became a musical mantra between us. "Don't play the B".

It was Sheila' s birthday today, and (Jennifer Jones tells me) during her celebration gig at the Bull's Head in Barnes, she movingly spoke about Jeff Clyne, and dedicated a huge bouquet of flowers to him. Then she sang to the flowers!