London Viola Player, Violinist & Arranger For Hire

Martin Ash LTCL

An audience of theft victims

Posted on

So last night (Saturday 12th) I was playing at the Ash Tree in Ashford with Kindred Spirit (duo form).

If anyone’s found a habitable rock to shelter under, it was England’s first match of the European football championships yesterday evening (as well as the official commemoration date of the Queen’s 90th birthday, and a naked cycle ride through London I accidentally stumbled across at Whitehall, and probably several other things I missed). Our sets were pushed back by band management to start straight after the end of the football as ‘this is a real football pub’. Probably actually quite a savvy way to run a big Saturday, with one thing handing over to another (they’d had a DJ in the daytime and I don’t know what else. Definitely bar staff in fancy dress).

This was the point at which I decided I had a professional interest in football for the first time (and I haven’t historically had that much interest of any kind in football):

  • England win: happy crowd, good if somewhat loud and lairy gig
  • England draw: frustrated crowd, likely to leave early or drink a lot but want to talk over the game and how we were robbed not sing along or dance
  • England lose: really tough crowd, someone requests ‘Three Lions’ between every number and I can’t wait to get out

Admittedly, it was the first match of a long tournament and so couldn’t produce any set in stone results for the whole thing, and I think a lot of fans have lowered expectations of England these days, so I may have been overstating the gloom at a draw. Either way, I was pleased and relieved when England finally managed to break a deadlock with Russia about a quarter of an hour into the second half.

And almost as gutted as the rest of the pub when Russia got lucky or seized a moment of weakness and equalised in extra time (the commentators seemed to agree they didn’t deserve to draw the match).

So, a tough start even if we did have a large crowd of people to start playing to.

I think it says a lot more than it usually would for a pub group that we had some people dancing from song two of the night (not Blur’s ‘Song 2’, interesting though that would be to cover), and still had a hard core eating out of our hand for ‘The Devil went down to Georgia’ coming up to midnight. Via some phone-filmed solos and unusually hearty applause (and piercing whistles – still in footy mode perhaps?). And it would always be an achievement to roll off the back of a collective disappointment like that (‘we’ were about 90 seconds off winning the match, seriously!) to be told I/we (English is so ambiguous sometimes) had made people’s evening, and take longer threading my way out through congratulations, handshakes, slightly incoherent and repetitive compliments and handing out business cards than packing up (and there is a lot of packing up to do at bar gigs, when you bring all your own gear). And (with apologies all due massive credit to Elaine!) it was gratifying that the people that spoke to me were specifically struck by the ‘electric’ (well, near enough) violin playing, rather than having happened to see me out of the two of us.

Need to start listing ‘winning people over’ as a personal specialism I think.

Posing for the steampunks

Posted on

Steampunk is primarily a visual and literary subculture rather than a musical (or anything else) one. So you may be unsure if the crowd will dance or sing along playing a steampunk convention, but at least you know the photos will be excellent.

From the Filthy Spectacula set at Sunday’s inaugural End Times convention in Brighton (or technically I think the Old Market is in Hove … ), here is an Instagram band montage by Mishkin Fitzgerald, of the excellent Bird Eats Baby, who followed us:

mish montage

and a selection from Peter Kalen Art & Photography:

peter kalen 1 peter kalen 2 peter kalen 3

including the obligatory off the stage scaring the audience away moment (sometimes they like it instead … ):

peter kalen 4

Ink & Oil & Filth

Posted on

Once upon a time there was a showground (called Peterborough Arena). And inside that showground there was (temporarily) the National Hot Rod and Custom Show. And inside that petrolheadgasm was a tattoo convention (called Ink & Oil). And inside that orgy of mechanised needles was a bar (called the Roadhouse Rock Stage). And inside that bar was the Filthy Spectacula.

After Friday’s shenanigans, half the band took Saturday off to recuperate and market the new album. The Dreadful Helmsman stayed in a field near Burton-on-Trent and got exotically intoxicated. I played a pub gig with the Kindred Spirit duo in Teddington, where we got asked to repeat ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ by a drunk man who turned out to hate sound engineers, one guy in the audience could properly Irish dance and the radiators were stuck on (much perspiring even by my standards).

We reconvened Sunday lunchtime to play four short sets over the afternoon, adding atmosphere (or something) to, well, largely the bar queue to be honest. Dreadful H’man and -woman entered into the spirit of the custom car event by having a breakdown en route, but entered far enough into it to fix it themselves. At one point we were playing to more photographers than anything else. At least the rockabilly DJ we were alternating with became a fan. Credit to the one steampunk couple that came to see us specially and stayed for half the time we played (at least)! On the other hand, the client took to Mr and ‘Mrs’ E so strongly they were asked to judge the day’s best tattoos awards (many categories!), while the rest of us packed up and huddled away south-west again.

Just when I might think I’ve caught up with my blog posts, this is another three-gig weekend: tonight, The Filthy Spectacula back at Jamboree; Saturday, a classical freelance job (Reading Town Hall; Handel, Holst and Shearing (not sure if jazz pianist George or another); Sunday, the Filth again at the Brighton End Times Steampunk Festival.

Rock on!

Bearded Filthy

Posted on

The Filthy Spectacula played hard last weekend.

First up, Friday: Bearded Theory. First up, opening the Maui Waui stage (we played their own festival last summer and we’re back there later this season). Including the video clip above courtesy of Traveller TV.

Three hours later, another 1-hour slot for a festival running a stage at a bigger festival. This time, Convoy Cabaret. We were new to them but we’re already booked for their own (relatively) pocket-sized event in September. The rowdy types had started waking up by this time, and Convoy Cabaret are much more punk-oriented than the mostly gypsy and electro swing Maui Waui. Perfect!

Finally (after some time off to take advantage of free food and see Killing Joke, who happened to be on main stage at the time), a short-notice open stage slot. I’m not sure the gathered stage faithful quite knew what was going on (the sound guy certainly didn’t), and as a rock fiddle player there is possibly no band I would less have chosen to clash with on main stage than Levellers. However, we can’t really complain seeing as our up-close-and-personal performance (God knows how we still had the energy) sealed the deal for a 2017 booking at Something Else and bagged us a main stage slot (also next year) at Deerstock. Put ’em in your diaries now!

Just as importantly, this was the day we officially unleashed our first album on a largely unsuspecting world (except those who’d been following the teaser video campaign). Thrup’ny Upright is out now and available here as physical CD or digital download (but then you miss out on the glorious (thru)penny-dreadful cover artwork), hailed by SteamPaper as

13-tracks of glorious dark ditties from the masters of mayhem.

So what are you waiting for?

Expanding my range

Posted on

Not literally (unlike singing tenor in Tallis’ ‘If ye love me’ a couple of weeks back, with its top Gs. But that wasn’t professional).

Two weekends ago (Pentecost, in the most relevant way of counting time for this context) I sang another service at St Matthew’s Bayswater, depping for their bass scholar Michael Rakoto. It’s good to keep my choral singing reasonably in practice.

The real departure, though, was last night’s engagement at Richmond Letcombe Regis, hopefully an entry for me into the retirement home performance circuit. If you follow the link and think it looks like the poshest retirement home you’ve ever seen, well, I’m with you there. The brief, for myself and pianist (and second violinist on one number) Rachel Greene, was 45 minutes, after early dinner, try and engage a rather reserved crowd but one that also know their stuff musically. The booker repeatedly described them as ‘a tough crowd’ and the atmosphere (and the acoustic!) in the restaurant space as ‘dry’.

Well the acoustic certainly was lacking in resonance and an electronic piano put through the PA and hearing loop system seems to have been a better solution for the audience than for Rachel hearing herself well. But I take issue with the tough crowd statement. A deliberately heterogeneous mix of classical ‘lollipops’, swing and Latin numbers, Irish fiddle tunes, an English traditional ballad and a number lifted from Les Misérables seemed to find something up most people’s street (I was complimented by a couple of Stéphane Grappelli fans afterwards, which is mostly flatteringly gratifying to my jazz violin skills). But my plan of attack had never been purely musical; it also involved (contrary to all expectations that if you hire a violinist, let alone a violin-piano duo, you’re getting a straight-up straight-laced classical recital) leaving Rachel behind the piano to do the hard work musically and follow the lead, while I engaged the less controversial aspects of my non-classical performance experience to work the crowd. My, let’s call it, physical expressiveness, wandering around the space (paying only the necessary attention to sheet music) and between-piece chatter to the audience certainly got their attention, and seem to have been rather enjoyed than otherwise. Energy was key to this I think – if you expect to be in the background you will be; if you act like there’s a spotlight on you, it’s amazing how many people will fall into line …

All in all, we had fun and as far as I can tell so did the audience. So, retirement homes, if your performances need a little spark bringing to them, you know who to call …

Busy Saturday?

Posted on

So tomorrow when it’s ‘the weekend’ …

Kindred Spirit head to Richmond May Fair in the afternoon, with ex-Judas Priest drummer Les Binks on the stool this time while Chris Goode tours with his punk outfit The Drunken Ramblings (well, I say tours … presumably rambles … ). Catch us between  to find out whether the stage really is too high for me to jump off (it was a close-run thing at the Fleece with the Filthy Spectacula but I dared it with relatively few people down the front).

Then I’ll be crossing London to Jamboree, to meet up with the String Project and soundcheck for an evening set supporting horn-heavy psych-country-bubblegum showstealers Platypus. Doors are at 8 and if you know us, Platypus or Jamboree you’ll know you can expect some surreal, energetic but very fun times! Don’t make too many plans for Sunday …

Busay Saturday? Nah, standard mate. You?

Joining the dark side

Posted on

Thursday’s Filthy Spectacula gig was unusual for us in a number of ways.

For one thing, we were playing just a half-hour set at the Fleece in Bristol, crammed into a midweek gig night bill with four other acts. These days we mostly seem to do either festival sets or all-evening bookings with no one else playing.

For another, since we were supporting this leg of a UK tour by US gothdom’s most media-friendly spokesperson Aurelio Voltaire, the most prevalent tenor of the night was the goth one. This tends to crop up in our freestyled lists of genres we might touch on (alongside steampunk, dark cabaret, ska, punk, ska-punk, gypsy, pirate, dark cabaret, dark folk, dark, debauched, drunk, anything else beginning with d and ‘unique as F*ck’), but as a subculture hasn’t had much direct contact with us.

I don’t have strong feelings either way on white foundation, guyliner, bats or pathological avoidance of sunlight; as usual, I’m more interested in the musical implications of finding ourselves in that sphere.

There was serious discussion among the band in advance as to whether it would go down well to even try and get people dancing in our usual raucous-n-rolling style (the phrase ‘the dead don’t dance’ was used!), and certainly the other two local supports were mostly about mood, not to say brood, rather than beat.

In the end though we went for standing out because we were never going to blend in, and probably delivered one of our most intense sets ever knowing we didn’t have to keep it up for long! It may have jarred against our immediate neighbours, but credit to us as the outsiders and to the crowd for not being too tribal we did win over a fair number, produce a satisfying amount of crazy dancing and make some new fans – not least among the other bands.

Tour support Cauda Pavonis kept up the darkness and the use of backing tracks (we were the only act to do everything live except for Voltaire himself, who, clearly used to maximising touring profit margins, took to the stage bolstered only by his own acoustic guitar and a half-litre of Cuban rum), but added sledgehammer energy to the mix, driven by gut-deep female vocals, guitar power chords, six-string bass and possibly the largest drum kit I have ever seen in person. Much more up our alley and the sentiment was mutual.

I had to miss half of Voltaire’s set due to catching the last train rail replacement bus home for work in the morning, but even stripped back to acoustic guitar and voice, his mix of playfully gothic lyrics and near-rockabilly musical styling clinched the night for energetic danceable performance (and larger-than-life stage personality!).

Icing on the cake for us though was certainly getting another (and hopefully somewhat more lucrative) gig out of it through new dead musical BFFs Cauda Pavonis – so black wearers of Bristol, if you missed us this time, you can get a closer look in June:

bierkeller gig image