Be careful for what you wish for.

When searching the internet we can all accidentally arrive upon some quite unlikely results.

Occasionally our innocent requests are met with a barrage of unwanted attention from sex workers, Nigerian Lawyers or Facebook recommendations.

My cousin recently wanted to clear the bin-liners full of the accumulation of years of junk from her backyard.

However she asked google if anyone was available to “respectfully enter my[sic] back passage and empty their bags”.

Imagine her response. 🤣

It’s easy to ask search engines the wrong question.

Soon enough we will be shown all the answers. All too soon. Whether we want to hear them or not.

For instance according to some accidental enquiries on the internet-

Apparently:

There are no chicks with dicks, only guys with tits.

“Threesome” is far too loose a term to describe and though often requested is a subjective niche and unfortunately all too easily open to, on reflection, rather disappointingly exploited interpretations for the casual observer to endure.

Also…

Surely only sexually damaged or old people want to watch 40+ people performing porn on a regular basis.

It could be argued that the same can be said for modern music.

©️Rolling Stones

Boy and girl bands are now indistinguishable…

The prevalence of producer DJs in the current charts smacks of a complete lack of imagination and/or belief by the establishment for young urban musicians to become working class heroes.

©️yokoono

Trios appear to be a thing of the past and yet somehow old people still sell huge amounts of records despite often being deeply buried beneath the sands of time and lost within the now ignored rock and roll archives of the last few decades.

Of course these are just the extremes.

They are after all only slightly more funny than the obvious contenders for ridicule in this case.

©️millivanilli

Imagine if you will

The Spice Girls. -not funny.

Shakespeare’s Sister. Not funny

https://img.discogs.com/9g_WX0AFPSLaR6LQhyUaA5AUm2U=/fit-in/497×774/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-254812-1386324716-5703.jpeg.jpg

Atomic Kitten. – funny.

Keep your searches safe!

Always remember to be humble.

Someone will always judge you.

Search for the truth.

Be yourself.

Don’t forget to be awesome.

Buy your favourite tune, don’t stream it from a free site.

Keep music alive.

The more I practice the luckier I get.

Many people believe that we make our own luck.

I’m one of them. Are you?

I just can’t believe in fate. It sounds far too much like hate. Instead I prefer to describe a sequence of (particularly important but seemingly random) events as a “set of circumstances”. Which is, by the way, a rather interesting, influential and often overused example of a collective noun. Such as the unlikely but sinister name for a group of crows… a Murder.

When you describe a group of things (it could be anything from seagulls to sequins) the subject of the grouping is made up of the sum of its individual parts.

Or as a “quarrel of lawyers” might recommend:

“Any identifiable number of similar entities or objects observed to be connected in some way, whether via physical proximity or figurative representation Otherwise they shall be judged grammatically challenged either individually or severally on their own or when grouped together with others who notwithstanding are also equipped with similar qualities or qualifications.”

Or maybe a bunch of old men mumbled it over and over again to themselves until someone else decided it would probably be a good idea to give the particular thing or things a definition and/or decide on a name for any future collection thereof.

Such as the name of a band or such like.

Then we can start introducing a metaphor into the equation and weaving it all into a nice slice of literary imagery.

Maybe even using the words “flock” or “depeche” to form a phrase.

As in a “flock of seagulls”

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or a “depeche of modes” etc.

Is it just me or does the blonde guy on the left appear to be in both of the above 80’s band pics?
-I said (more or less) just before scribbling it down and unsuccessfully rewording it for this blog:

“Circumstances are often arrived at from different places but coincidences always point in the same direction”.

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In other words- for us, time and everything else connected to it tends to lean towards the ‘now’ which we are all simultaneously experiencing more than anything else we know.

It’s all about living in the moment. Live your life. Do your research. Make informed choices.

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Only when you’ve weighed up all the options should you take a chance.

It could be argued that if you keep tossing a coin, catching it and slapping it down on a hard surface for long enough given time it should be possible to beat the 50/50 probability.

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You could always practice a skill or stumble on something else and utilise it for your own personal gain. There are of course certain economic, societal and class-based factors which might or might not be helpful at this point.

Hope this doesn’t sound like one of those self-help books written by insincere 70s sales guys with Terry Wogan-esque hair wearing cheap suits and even cheaper smiles from back in the day.

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Trust me.

I believe we influence our environment directly in a positive/negative or even apathetic way by how we interact with others.

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Or in other words “It’s all up to us, our families, friends and even casual acquaintances we accumulate from time to time along the way”.

That’s You, Me, All of us together.

As the Barenaked Ladies say: Odds are it’ll all be alright.

By complete coincidence, or is it fate? After a month or so’s hiatus its finally time to begin my preparations for the next bout of OMD touring this year.

The rehearsal room has been lovingly prepared and (barring any mishaps) I will be ready for 2018 full band gigs soon.

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Sometimes we have the answer to our questions right in front of us, for all to see.

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“The more we learn, the less we know”.

Off days

When you’re on tour you occasionally get days off. When you return and have an extended break from being on tour you will encounter off days.

These manifest themselves in a few categories.

1. The Duvet Day.

Turn off your phones and snuggle down into complete and utter isolation from the outside world. It’s just you, all the snacks and drinks and a Netflix series binge.

2. Getting completely fit day

Going to the gym running etc.

Boring everyone with up to the minute fit-bit posts.

3. Detox Diet Day.

The three d’s.

Diet, Detox Diet.

Keenly sourcing organic veg and fruit and preparing it until the washing up builds up and becomes too much of a burden.

4. Ikea fail day!

Buying a load of scented tea-lights and trying to construct a Swedish styled coffee table.

5. Sit in front of the fire day.

Chopping up bits of Swedish pine furniture and chucking it in your log burner.

Pouring a baileys coffee and nibbling some Belgian chocolates while watching reruns of Brooklyn 99 on All4

5. Joining the national trust day.

Planning loads of trips to castles etc we all know won’t ever happen before the annual membership runs out.

Buying random walking boots and anoraks from amazon.

6. Posting pics of when you were last on tour.

I guess it’s one of those days.

Flicking through the pics on my phone and thinking that I should probably put them in folders. I’m overwhelmed. I lack motivation.

My family always comes first and spending time with them will always take priority over any desire of mine to organise my photos in some sort of order.

It’s true, they couldn’t care less what Dad actually does.

It’s their time!

That’s when I pause.

I am best known for writing, producing, arranging and performing on major hit recordings from the 80s 90s and naughties. Now I’m out playing live again with a band I first got involved with in the late eighties.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Drumming with this band has taken me away from the family often for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.

My wife Joanne takes the burden of looking after the family while I’m away. She gets the kids ready for school, edits dissertations, fixes the leaking roof. I just feel complete awe for what she does and can’t imagine how we’d all cope without her considerable skills and amazing care.

We have three kids. Our eldest has just finished her Masters, we have a quiet middle child who is preparing for his GCSEs and the youngest is doing very well striving to fit as best he can in to mainstream education. As a high functioning teenager with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Luckily Jo is a graduate with combined honours in Education and Human Biology. She trained as a school teacher. Not just a graduate who went on to take a PGCE-she did a whole degree in teaching.

She is awesome with us all.

Somehow this also gives her an advantage over most parents when negotiating with certain bellicose individuals representing some educational establishments over how some of our more recalcitrant offspring are coping within their professional care.

I only have a smattered knowledge of educational psychology theory but what Jo knows about the subject is fascinating. She can make them all do the right thing. Without ever raising her voice.

That includes our kids.

She is the best mum.

That’s why I married her on 29th August 2017.

Now that was the GREATEST day.

The Energy Suite

It was the spring of 2008 and I was taking a rare vacation with Jo and the kids near Talacre caravan park in North Wales.

During a phone call with Andy McCluskey the seed of an idea took root while I was there. 

He asked me where I was and I replied that I was standing on the sand opposite the Wirral and actually enjoying looking at the panoramic, dystopian image of a very near and present chemical refinery which was juxtaposed against a backdrop of the most picturesquely  rural, rapien and environmental paradise surrounding me. 

Talacre is located close to a gas refinery which feeds Connor’s Quay gas fired Power Station nearby. 

That particularly sunny, blue-skied lunchtime as the kids and I played catch on  the local beach afterwards we fell exhausted from running and laughing devoured our sandwiches and drank our cold coffee from an old thermos and sipped warm juice from a carton, respectively. Then just as we sprawled loudly but comfortably on the assorted damp towels we had hurriedly laid out on the dry sandy beach -I paused. 

It struck me looking across the wonderful River Dee estuary not only at the sublime natural beauty but also at the jagged pipes and vent-crowned silhouettes of the shiny metallic towers rising above the marran grass tipped sand dunes (like Dr Who’s daleks or even the dreaded cybermen) –

  

 Talacre, North Wales.  

But I was lost for an outlet to express this feeling. 

A few weeks later Andy phoned me with one of his “I’ve had a mad idea” notions. Usually these came in one of two guises. Both types regularly came to light at least twice or three times a fortnight. Most common was the unworkable/unlikely mad idea. Which although undoubtedly interesting would be either too expensive to achieve or in some cases actually defied the contemporary  laws of physics. 

But every once in a while despite considerable critical scrutiny and sometimes even concerted efforts to discredit it, a single genius idea would occasionally break through and become a reality. 

The Energy Suite was, I believe  just such a moment of genius. 

U.S. tour 2016.

Finally after months of speculation OMD tour dates for the summer of 2016 have been announced at http://www.OMD.uk.com&nbsp;

Live shows! 

  

Tickets for most shows go on sale February 5th at 10am local. The tour dates are as follows:

Jun 3 – Minneapolis, MN – The Cabooze

Jun 4 – Kansas City, MO – Starlight Theatre

Jun 5 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks

Jun 8 – Huber Heights, OH – Rose Music Center at The Heights

Jun 9 – Highland Park, IL – Ravinia Pavillion

Jun 10 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre

Jun 11 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavillion at Nautica

Jun 13 – New York, NY – SummerStage in Central Park

Jun 14 – Lewiston, NY – Artpack

Jun 15 – Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap Center for Performing Arts

Jun 17 – Bethel, NY – Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Jun 18 – Philadelphia, PA – The Mann Center for the Performing Arts

Jun 19 – Boston, MA – Blue Hills Bank Pavillion

Jun 20 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE

Jun 24 – Portland, ME – Maine State Pier

Jun 25 – Wallingford, CT – Oakdale Theatre

Jun 26 – Baltimore, MD – Pier 6 Pavillion

Jun 28 – Alpharetta, GA – Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park

Jun 30 – Charlotte, NC – Uptown Amphitheatre at the NC Music Factory

Jul 1 – Charleston, SC – Volvo Cars Stadium

Jul 2 – St. Augustine, FL – Saint Augustine Amphitheatre

Jul 3 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheatre

Jul 5 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheatre

Jul 6 – Cincinnati, OH – PNC Pavilion at Riverbend Music Center

Jul 8 – Indianapolis, IN – Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park

Jul 12 – Boise, ID – Hawk’s Memorial Stadium

Jul 15 – Missoula, MT – Big Sky Brewing Company

Jul 16 – Redmond, WA – Marymoor Park Concerts

Jul 17 – Troutdale, OR – Edgefield

Jul 19 – Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery

Jul 20 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union

Jul 22 – Las Vegas, NV – Downtown Las Vegas Events Center

Jul 23 – Lincoln, CA – Thunder Valley Casino Amp

Jul 24 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre

After the Summer

   
 
Primavera 2015 was awesome.

Although we didn’t get the summer tour full band production rehearsal promised in sound check  because the driver with the gear went AWOL, we still had five minutes to familiarise ourselves with the setup and make adjustments to monitors and such like.

Of course this meant that when we finally strolled on stage some 11 hours later it was dark and twenty five thousand punters had accumulated at the security barriers surrounding the impressive stage, full of curiosity and expectation. 

I was far too preoccupied with last minute fears and doubts about my performance to actually enjoy the moment at first. An hour before stage time, Paul Humphries offered up sagely advice in my hour of need. He simply explained in no uncertain terms that I should adopt the mantra of “thinking is the enemy” when it comes to pre gig nerves. 

Andy McCluskey gave me a big hug backstage and we laughed as the moment seemed to transcend our long friendship and professional relationship. 

Martin Cooper echoed the words of Paul and gave me a slightly alternative perspective to the other two. He suggested “This was a fortunate position for us all to be in.” It was scarey but if you’ve learned your part properly then there was nothing to worry about. You must shift into autopilot as soon as possible when on stage and rely on your instincts. 

Only then can you truly perform. 

He was right. If you second guess yourself under the gaze of the crowd every mistake will seem an extreme and painful spotlight of perceived pressure. Such as when playing your first gig in 21 years. 

At this point any doubt will quickly escalate and morph  into a world of panic. 

Especially when your resolve is also tested with the caveat that your first gig in 21 years is only going to be witnessed by a 25,000 strong crowd live and syndicated nationally via Spanish TV coverage. 

Not that it being in Spain was a problem. In fact it made the transition from house husband/history student/autism carer to OMD drummer once again. The hotel was fab, it had an infinity pool on the roof which gifted the swimmer with a perfect aerial view of the whole primavera festival complex.  

   
Feeling a little embarrassed at the luxurious surroundings and struggling  with the notion to swim from end to end in the warm water (occasionally glancing at the stage we would be playing on that night) through the fish tank walls of the pool it was when standing there frozen to the spot that  I suddenly realised that I hadn’t packed my swimming shorts. 

Despite this I decided to pretend my undies were speedos and jumped in regardless. 

Immersed in the water, the hot spring sunlight dappled on gently rolling waves I had created and I slowly realised I was actually going to do this. 

It wasn’t some elaborate hoax, I was  really going to be playing drums live in front of tens of thousands today and through this summer of 2015, I knew it was going to be quite different to the last few years of my life. 

  

Friendships

We don’t always know what’s wrong with us, but when we’re with true friends we know what’s right. 

Playing the drums harder than normal.

Since last Thursday I’ve been hitting the drums that little bit harder. 

  
This is not due to using bigger sticks or because the bass player has got a louder amplifier. Nor is it because I have developed a new technique, diet or training. Instead I rediscovered rage. 

Early on Friday morning, fresh from hearing the results of the general election, I saw the kids off to school, packed my car and promptly headed off to practice drums for the upcoming festival set on my own in the rehearsal room 30 odd miles away.  I arrived at 09:43 and quickly but carefully followed each step of the intricate power up sequence required to make the Protools, Roland TD, SPD in ear monitors and audio interfaces etc bang and whistle correctly. 

Then for the next couple of hours (without a break between songs) I proceeded to Tw*t the fu*k out of my kit without prejudice. Thanks to the slanted media coverage and it’s inevitable effect upon the minds of well meaning but misinformed voters. 

I played the whole set in what on reflection can only be described as a state of acute and rhythmically restrained anger. All my energy was focused into hitting each prescribed stroke of the sticks through every acoustic and electric percussive surface, or, indeed as it turned out, headphone lead which got in my way. 

So after a successful number of songs were despatched with gusto it came to one song which still regularly eludes the darker recesses of my muscle memory banks. 

As most band musicians know, drummers typically map song arrangements in their heads with a far greater perspective of the foundations driving an arrangement than all the other players performing the composition put together.

However some songs always cause you problems. I was asked recently by someone on Facebook which OMD song I find hardest to play live. I didn’t reply because I won’t really know until May 27th at the Primavera festival in Barcelona. 

When I come off stage that night I’ll hopefully be able to answer that question  more accurately. 

“But which song is the hardest to play?” I hear you ask. 

Let’s wait and see.  

   

Star Wars Drums

When someone said “drum pads” the other day, I was immediately reminded of Star Wars…

Then I recalled (admittedly a little bit slowly) the rose-spectacled image I have retained from my youth of the iconoclastic Syndrum1 designed by Joe Pollard and Matt Barton in 1976.

As a child this space-aged and rather Star Warsy looking techno-music-marvel was stuffily demonstrated on my parent’s rented TV set by the veteran presenter James Burke and his sidekick Michael Rodd weekly on the 1970s and 80s primetime BBC technology show ‘Tomorrow’s World’.
It looked like the Millennium Falcon to me at the time.

However, it wasn’t until later as a teenager watching a very similar contraption appear on the (equally legendary and contemporary to my early life) BBCTV primetime music chart show ‘Top of the Pops’ that I experienced an unusual stirring sensation deep in my drumming soul.
It arrived in the form of a slightly cheesy, overly dramatic, quick-zoomed close-up of the high pitched “Beeyoom Beeyoom” syndrum sound.

What made it special was it was being ‘mimed’ to by the resident TOTP dance troupe Pan’s People.

The combination of their lipsticked, Vaseline-smeared, soft focus smiles combined with their slinky, scantily clad, flexible, flowing and most of all “interpretive” dance routines certainly grabbed my adolescent attention.
In this instance it was to the classic disco hit from Anita Ward- “You can ring my bell’.

Despite what you are probably thinking it was all about the purity of percussive perception for me at the time.
But that was the moment when the concept of synthesised drums on a record first changed my life forever.
After a long career in the music industry, when I see these artefacts now it makes me smile.
Seen from my current perspective as drummer with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, interacting with this technology has for me, become accepted as an essential part of the job.
But let’s look at their evolution.
Early electronic drums were actually quite simply constructed.

They invariably consisted of a small acoustic speaker rewired so as to act as a microphonic sensor.
This was usually concealed beneath a circular piece of 1/4 inch thick rubber, sturdily glued to a metal or wooden box and connected by cable to either an internal or external one-note (monophonic) sound generator and only actually audible when it was monitored through an external amplifier and speaker.
If you think that was a little hard to read or understand then just imagine how such a modern definition would have been received by the community of largely simple-minded and uncomplicated souls representing the contemporary drumming folk.
Everyone knew them only as the goalie of the band, the guy ‘behind’ the kit. Then came the Syndrum.
This leap from acoustic to electric just gave the rest of your average band, yet another opportunity to ignore their drummer.

But what of the drummers?
Unlike their synthetic replacements these specialists were brought up listening to such icons as Art Blakey, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Iain Paice, Phil Collins, Neil Peart and Bill Bruford. They had a perceived ownership of ‘the beat’. They possessed an intuitive and organic understand of groove.
The rise of the more mechanical approach to music prevalent in the late seventies and early eighties was quite alien to these dinosaurs and therefore completely baffling to almost everyone associated with contemporary drumming. Except for a very small elite of Western European Electro musicians.
Think Kraftwerk. Think Mal Holmes.

The principle of creating beats with synthetic sounds eventually became an art form so diverse it included the triggering of percussive audio snippets expertly processed using pitch adjustment quantised beat alignment software, yes, the whole audio photoshop, as represented in the late 20th and early 21st century chart topping music by such ‘artists’ as Michael Buble, One Direction and Milli Vanilli.
Nowadays anyone can play the drums.
There are numerous smartphone apps on which you can pretend to be a drummer without requiring any of the effort or skill to sound a bit like a drummer.
But what of the real drummers? Gone were the traditional skulls, earthenware pots and logs sealed with either animal hide or plastic ‘skins’ stretched taught over their ends, which had always been repeatedly struck with anything their hairy ancient furrowed ancestors had available. This probably included bones, wooden sticks or even their bare clenched fists, open hands, feet, foreheads etc.
Enter the Simmons Kit in the early 80s.

Now you could ‘sample’ drums and process them so tightly that every drum sounded like the intro to the Channel 4 Liverpool based sitcom Brookside.
The demise of the traditional drummer also began in the late 1970s and early 80s with the emergence of synth players, sequencers and Drum Machines.
Gifted with this new and exciting technology, suddenly the previously inconspicuous such as Howard Jones:

And other Keyboardist nerds, seized the initiative and enabled themselves and their producers to set the metronome , tempo and feel of a track. To control the rhythmic impact and power of the music and finally release it far from the sweaty hands of the drummer.
Records became drummer-less.

By successfully creating PIFF PAFF sounds, the rise of these ubiquitous ‘Keyboardfists’ eventually led to an emergence of specialist programmers and DJ/producers.
They made the rhythmic tick tock percussion transients necessary to imitate the two most basic human beat generators the STOMP and the CLAP using synthesisers and drum machines.
This had always been the realm of the ancient drummers.
Many previously emulated the bass and snare drums. They had tambourines and Cajons. They made fun of the drummers’ monophonic limitations as their polyphonic synthesisers gave them the ability to play up to eight different PISH and DOOsH sounds from their multi oscillator Rolands ARPs, Oberheims at once.
Treated as little more than a gimmick at first by contemporary musicians and record producers, soon the Syndrum became just another faded anomaly destined to be pinned to the crumbling cork board of destiny in the museum of failed musical instrument innovation.

Phil Collins and my old 22″ Pearl BLX kick drum.

In a round about way these two images are connected.
One shows a badly transcribed attempt at writing down the iconic drum fill created by Phil Collins which Mike Tyson mimed to, in the hangover, before sparking Zach Galifianakis out over a tiger.
The other is a rare and seldom seen image of an experienced but generally unsung international performer, lost since the end of the last century.
A Pearl BLX 22″ bass drum.
Don’t let its tattered appearance fool you.
This hardworking bass drum performed live on stage with OMD in front of many thousands of people, night after night back in the 1990s… It was the booming thud that controlled the crowd’s collective heartbeat for the band.
However with only very short stubborn legs the bass drum couldn’t dance like the rest of the kit. Unable to even move, Stuck in place, rooted to the spot because at the end of each rigid limb he had two chrome cylindrical spikes tapered to a point, instead of feet.
He watched all the other instruments as they shone brightly in the spotlight.
The snare drum and cymbals said “ratatatish” and the crowd roared- but the bass drum felt, by comparison, that he got very little recognition.

The years rolled on. Each gig meant more ruff stuff from the roadies. They grumbled he was too awkward and heavy, nobody like to be the one to carry him this time.
The smaller drums and stands rattled together and made fun of the poor bass drum. Bigger and slower than the others, the bass drum soon earned the nickname “kik”. That’s when everyone started to really put the boot in.
Drifting and listless, KiK ended up as part of a ramshackle house kit in no less than two major Liverpool studios: The Motor Museum and Parr Street.
Careworn but still solid, some producers would rely on this kick drum, but as time passed so did his fading opportunities.
After a career recording in all the top studios from Abbey Road to the Manor, Oxford-where the famous gated drum room talkback mic sound used by Phil Collins’ “In the air tonight” was created,
Finally the bass drum became an occasional choice of drummers doing sessions in Parr St which at one time was part owned by Phil Collins.
I guess this is the closest this drum ever got to Phil.