busker

Frisell ~ Stewart ~ Daisey ~ Jagger

An invite to the Stones' October 30 Key Arena concert sends me into a tizzy.

Mon Dieu! Sir Mick et crew - only 42 years between concerts.

The last (and first) time I saw them live was in a grotty little club in Twickenham in the summer of 1963 - 15 years before my lithe October hostess was even born.

Playing Stones records was banned at school, which of course made it vital that Dave Greenhalgh and I meet up in the hols and check out one of their gigs.

Dave always sported one of those cool tousled non-haircuts, thanks to ignoring the school shearers and going into the village for a trim whenever his shagginess threatened to catch Head's eye in chapel. He got away with it because he was one of those all-round athletes who enjoyed approval from on high and untouchable hero status among the ranks. Any prefects who acted up found themselves mysteriously partnered opposite Dave in boxing practice or tackled with bruising ferocity on the rugger field.

I on the other hand defined the weediness of the solitary sulker, for which the punishment included a permanent shorn back 'n' sides look. This wasn't too bad during term time imprisonment, as one of 400 sporting the 'plucked chicken' look, but disastrous for any sort of girl chasing during the holidays or, in the case of "Operation Stones", passing oneself off as a fellow neanderthal in a rough south London boozer.

I still recall the energy and sheer *volume* of their sound - not to mention the dazed looks on every single bird in the place. I mean, forget which mere mortal they were with - when Mick started into 'Not Fade Away', he had the pick of any of the swooning Marianne Faithful lookalikes, and probably did, lucky swine.

Anyway, a lot of water been passed since then ... what am I up to these days?

• The no-longer-fellow-islander strumming Bill Frisell: Every gig Jim and I go to, we exit swearing never again to pay for the privilege of staring at an unrelieved view of the plushly leather-jacketed Frisell back (the pic up there is a pretty typical scenario, the best seat being a perch on the drummer's shoulder, in the case of the 26th, the blazing batterie of the amazing Brian Blade).

  But every time we see BF's playing anywhere, we call each other up and make sure calendars are cleared.

  For our May 26 jaunt to Jazz Alley, we may finally have it sussed:

  Jim knows one of the staff so we paid an advance visit and got her to reserve us that stage-right table in the extreme photo foreground. See it? With the sleek-haired chappie just left of the turquoise.

• Al Stewart
  

  

  
  

  May 20th - next week as ever is - sees the great Al Stewart at the noble
  Triple Door, and the reason for that array of pics up there is that when I first fell for Al he was - we both were, come to think of it - all hawk-faced and shoulder-length hair and now he's such a dapper gent with sloping chins and all. Mind you, still the most *effortless* guitar genius I have come across: he's chatting away to (and facing) the audience or singing and his left hand ripples up and down the fretboard to faultless plectrum work ... just stunning.

  Stewart concerts are also fun for the baby boomer Brits it winkles out of the woodwork, not to mention local fans who always look a bit defensive and grumpy about taking 15 years to discover him after the rest of us had been rocking away. Same goes for Bert Jansch, incidentally.
  And a new AL-bum out June 21~ truly my cup runneth over.

  

• June 4: the clever Mike Daisey, whose reading of his Amazon book at Elliott Bay was one of the wittiest shows I've been to and who seems to be parlaying his brief time at the 'Zon into a marathon success story.

• Paul Theroux, June 10: actually I was better friends with PT's BBC World Service wife (probably ex- by now, so I'll probe tactfully), but Paul was a distinguished Hamish Hamilton author on whose books I'd lavish elaborate review/interview coverage in a desperate bid to woo HH's publicity manager, the sultry Teresa King (who broke all our hearts by swanning off to marry the husky Ted Simon). According to the rumor mill, the smokey-voiced T was last sighted down in Kentucky - goodness, how we've all got around.

  Theroux: I suppose we'll have another bevy of mispronunciations with everyone sounding it 'Thoreau' / th'row like Heathrow. I did some work with the 1995 BookFair when Paul came over and I remember getting very pompous and irritated at the reception after, correcting and assuring everyone that it was in fact 'The-roo'. Not that anyone paid a blind bit of attention ....

  Jonathan Raban, Peter Moss and myself commandeered a corner and spoke loud and perfect Queen's English as we compared sailing experiences around Sooke Harbour, which Peter's house overlooked.