Pete's Blog

We are having a rotten, rainy summer down here in Bavaria. I think all that volcanic ash has floated down and hit the brick wall of the Alps and is now blocking out the sun. I don’t imagine Iceland has as much money as BP but it would be nice if they could find a way to suck all this dust back up their way. A project for your school’s science class.

Once in a while the sun does peep through and then the beer gardens are filled and the charming streets of  Munich are packed with tables and chairs as the cafe culture blooms. On one of these rare nice days an open-air concert was staged featuring two names who I have always proudly displayed in my various biogs, Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton.

My association with Eric was not very long, being limited to my recording session with him for Elektra under the band name of ECs Powerhouse in 1965 I think. He would often turn up at gigs we played in London and sit in (jam) with us because we all loved the same music and he enjoyed Steve’s great talents as a partner on organ or guitar, even in those early days. I think I was asked for that session because Ginger Baker couldn’t make it. I think he might have been recovering from the cosmetic surgery necessary to turn him into Phil Seaman.

My several years with Steve in the Spencer Davis Group shaped the rest of my life and we have met occasionally in the intervening 40 odd years. I had called him several weeks before this open-air in Munich in the hope that we could meet once again.

Tha day dawned sunny and stayed that way. Mecky and I found a good parking place, a small triumph in itself, and picked up our tickets and VIP passes. Steve’s right-hand, James, sent us an SMS that Steve would like us to come to the backstage. It was still an hour and a half to show-time. As is often the case on these kind of gigs, the dressing rooms were in containers grouped around a central catering area for musicians and crew.  There were a few crew members hanging around but no sign of any artists. James met us and took us into Steve’s “room”.

As always when one meets up with old pals, the years disappear and conversations resume. We caught up on stories and news about all our mutual friends and Steve proudly told me that his son was already drumming in a big band. This will give him invaluable experience and I said I would try to get hold of some arrangements for them. It was a delightful chat but I know how valuable a bit of peace and quiet before the concert is so left him to find our seats in the vast area of the Königsplatz. I hadn’t seen a hair nor plectrum from Eric or heard the patter of a practice pad from Steve Gadd’s room so I guess they were asleep.

We soon met up with Holm Dressler, his wife Jutta and her sister. Holm will direct the Beatles TV show, news of which you will find elsewhere in the website. By now there were around 14.000 people gathered and the beer and wine stands doing a roaring trade.

The show was really enjoyable, lots of oldies, hits and great soloing from Steve, Eric and Chris Stainton. Steve’s voice is astonishingly good and his organ playing made me think back to the jamming we would do before the shows back in the Sixties. For the flavour of these go back to those instrumental B sides on the singles. They were all cut in about twenty minutes each.

How was it for me to listen to these two giants of our music as a member of the crowd? A lot of nostalgia certainly, a touch of sadness that I probably won’t ever get to play for such a huge audience again in this life, but also a great warmth that I have been a part of this British blues/rock story. And I also felt confident that my approach to playing Gimme Some Lovin’ was at least as good as Steve Gadd’s. You can check for yourselves in Lahnstein in September.

As depressing news hits us from all sides, albeit dispensed attractively by the bright and beautiful at Sky News, it is sadly too late for me to stand as the next Prime Minister. I have been living for more than 25 years in Germany; a country which, according to the Brit Dumbo Press, is still peopled by goose-stepping Gauleiters and Fräuleins in lederhosen.

I would have had solutions, ho yes. I would like to see those at BP who thought it wasn’t worth spending any money on a second safety shut-off valve for that exploded oil-rig off New Orleans brought to book.

Perhaps they could raise some of the ginormous clean-up money from a sponsored swim in the polluted Gulf. I think we’d all like to see these dreadful desk jockeys splashing through the goo, choking and spluttering their last.

You may wonder why an old muso on beta-blockers gets hot under the collar about this terrible event, which could so easily have been avoided.  Apart from the damage caused to wildlife and the environment New Orleans gets clobbered again. Without this great city the story of music in the Western world would be vastly different and the U.S. would not have had it’s only original art form, jazz.  This revolution morphed into swing, R & B, rock and roll and eventually pop, so I guess it makes you wonder about how things get polluted in the arts as well. No matter there have been some treasures along the way.

 After the hurricane damage many people suffered great loss and now those same people face a further catastrophe in their area. My heart goes out to all of them.

LAST ONE UP THE ACROPOLIS BUYS THE OUZO

Some years ago I played in Athens and several other gigs in Greece. The financial arrangements were haphazard to say the least. We ate very well and I enjoyed the alcoholicals and the friendly hospitality was delightful. The gigs were packed and cash flowed into the ticket offices everywhere. Nobody seemed to know or care how much or where it went. Occasionaly we would be bunged a handful of notes. I can’t remember any paperwork or demands for signatures that I had received anything.  Quite how the books were balanced I can’t imagine. And now there’s rioting on the streets as the good citizens are asked by their flaky government to cough up the shortfall. Democracy is freedom and freedom means we don’t have to pay taxes if we don’t think we should.  Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.

If Euroland bails out the failing countries with our tax money, and I fear it has to, how about we all go on holidays to these places and then refuse to pay our bills.  

 K.O.D.A.

This is new charity to which I shall be donating large portions of any fees I earn on my forthcoming shows.  Those of you who buy tickets to see me and my excellent musician friends can feel a warm glow as you enjoy stunning performances of a variety of musical programmes. This will be the glow of satisfaction as you know you’ve done something worthwhile for a section of society often neglected by the majority, even despised by the younger generation.

It is sobering to think that there are many men, but mercifully few women, who are unable to afford front-row seats for the Cirque du Soleil, or the muscle and joint relieving treatment of the Pattaya Massage and Ticklerama Salon, a Lamborghini Hybrid Tricycle or a relaxing paddle in Celine Dion’s watergarden. These are all fantasy dreams for this tragic group and that’s why the charity KODA now exists. It stands for Keeping Old Drummers Alive and you and your family can help by coming to see me and ichronic figures like me, as often as possible.

I am about to leave home for another season with Helge in the Admiralspalast, Berlin. Mecky will tearfully wave me off tomorrow as I lay the rattan switch across the broad shoulders of Phil So Yung, the Chinese coolie who will rickshaw me to the capital. Further up the street the milkman, the insurance salesman and a certain Hans Kneess will be waiting till I’m safely out of the way before fancying their chances with my lovely wife.
They should be so lucky……
We have done this Berlin gig for some years now and it is phenomenal how Helge fills this theatre for over two solid weeks.
However when this is over on April 4th. Helge wants to take a loooong break, and who can blame him. Making people laugh and keeping the material fresh takes a lot of energy and imagination. There have been hundreds of shows since I have been on board and it’s not surprising that Helge wants to take time off to be with his growing family.

I shall not be idle for long as I have gigs coming up with my various jazz and R & B mates. There are some long lasting friendships among us and it’s life affirming to continue to see and play with pals ranging from Ron Hills from my Birmingham days and Jon Lord from the time when Hardin and York was an opening act for Deep Purple. And Ron played cornet on the H & Y first album.

AND THERE’S ONLY TWO OF THEM

Apropos the above notelet, Hardin And York enjoyed great success in Europe and America back in the early Seventies. Forty years on seems a good time to stun the audiences one more time. A duo of organ and drums was, and still is, a rarity on the live music scene. And we were a concert act, appearing at massive festivals and at such prestigious venues as the Albert Hall. Our several LP recordings all went Gold according to our producer, Mike Hurst. This fact was kept from us by our then manager, in case we asked where the money was. Yet another Right Royal Rip-Off to add to the ones in the Spencer Davis years. We did feel some satisfaction from sending this creep a postcard from Dachau with “Wish You Were Here” written on it.

Eddie and I have renewed our phonings and the  humour is still very much there. We hope to show ourselves soon, svelte, mature and still capable of the old magic. We’ll take care to con an old friend into managing us so those problems don’t re-occur.

MUSIC? I’LL GIVE YOU MUSIC

When you flit through that group of TV channels supposedly presenting moosick you actually won’t find much because the dumbing down by artists and producers especially has resulted in melodies, if there are any, which make the average nursery rhyme sound like Stravinsky. So, no tune. The chords and harmonies are predictable and elementary and rhythms are built around a deafening four in the bar which could be used as cover for an underground assault on a bank vault.

The artists who present this puerile pap usually dress like hookers of either of the three sexes. Now there’s nothing wrong with this in my book except that none of them look as if they have the straight up moxy to follow through on the promise they seem to be making. I would have more respect for these pop girls if, at the end of their songs, they would leap into the audience and give all those interested a good seeing-to. But no, they slip away in a cloud of bodyguards to their bio dressing rooms for some macro muesli and holy water. Dethpicable!!!

Now in my day……..

A very happy and healthy New Year to you, our Reader. I know who you are and where you live so don’t think you can hide this dark desire to read the ravings of a super-annuated skin basher. Twelve more exciting new months stretch in front of us like the threadbare strip of carpet on the landing. Of course, they might not be exciting for everyone. There’s a lot of sadness and misery in the world today. Much of it inflicted on us by bankers, politicians, military strategists and the leaders of various religions.
Creative artists don’t tend to go in for intolerance, dogma, rampaging greed, despotism and the extermination of anybody who doesn’t agree with them. We are dreamers and we express our dreams through various arty outlets, which never hurt anyone. I hope our neighbours agree when I start practising at 8.00 in the morning.

I’m going to make a big effort this year to become a celebrity, if only to make it easier to get my music across.
Forty five years ago I was in a boy group, as handsome and heart-throbbing as any today. We had our own Boy Wonder who did much to give us the gold and platinum disc success we enjoyed. Unfortunately the money didn’t really flow our way and the BW went his own way to play with more “interesting” people. In those dim and distant fabled Swinging Sixties a culture of excess developed. Getting plastered on a Friday night was the norm as it is in Britain today and drugs found a ready market. From joints to pills to acid to needles the drug scene grew to become a fact of musical life and began to define the musicians themselves.
I remember many parties where the lines were drawn between those who did and those who didn’t. Almost a religious intolerance. I know I missed out on many gig offers because I was too straight. I would have fitted in nicely with Cliff Richard but he already had an excellent drummer in Brian Bennett.
Well that’s all going to change. While everbody else is giving things up, I’m just about to start a year-long orgy of substance abuse, endless partying and making a spectacle of myself in public places.
I estimate that my new notoriety will make me irresistible to the Press. And I don’t care how low I have to stoop to make those headlines. Has anybody got Jordan’s phone number?

I can’t take life very seriously, perhaps it’s all the pills I have to take for the ongoing functioning of my battered organs. Perhaps I have been a drug addict without knowing it for many years. I must call Keith Richards, maybe there’s still a chance.
But first my affair with Jordan. Mecky won’t mind because there won’t be any physical contact, I just have to be photographed coming out of her place at 5.00 in the morning looking extremely seen-to and dressed in Sophia Loren’s old corset. I hope it’s not too big for me.

2010 will be fun indeed.

Christmas has been and gone but the memories of it still lurk around the waistband. Mecky cooked a trad English lunch beautifully. She has had over thirty years experience of doing this, having married a Brit. Our daughter, Stephanie, has always been with us at Christmas and Mecky’s sister, Hildegard, was also able to come. I think the turkey’s parents might have included an ostrich because it was a big bird, sort of Dawn French with feathers. Anyway the leftovers turned up for several meals afterwards in various disguises. The most spectacular being spaghetti. Although my favourite is always Madras Turkey Curry with the help of the Pataks sauce  company without whom life for an expat, a thousand miles from Birmingham, would be unbearable.

Christmas TV via Sky satellite wasn’t too exciting, the old shows are the best for me. Mecky and I did pop into the Nutcracker for a some ballet and wonderful music. It seemed to fit our mood and we both stayed with it and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to make more effort and get out to see these productions live. That can be a New Year’s Resolution.

There are some live shows that I would like to see next year, promoters please note. There’s money to be made here for you avid collectors of the green and crinkly, and I don’t mean de-hydrated aliens, of which I have two for sale. A sporting fixture I have been waiting for is the All-Blacks versus Manchester United live in Las Vegas with cheerleaders. Another one which won’t take up much room and could be of great interest to socio-anthropologists involves Tiger Woods and Silvio Berlusconi locked in a cage together for several days. This could be staged in a circus ring and the spectators could wander in and out hoping to see some sort of action. The incarceration of two sex addicts hasn’t happened since Liz and Dick’s honeymoon, which sadly wasn’t televised.

I am not expecting to be invited to be a juror on a reality talent celebrity show in 2010. As someone who has forty five years experience of playing and singing all kinds of music in all branches of the media I don’t have the right qualifications. I have never been cosmetically enhanced, I’m not wrapped up in my own image, my tits are as nature intended and I have always been friendly and approachable and have never ripped-off my colleagues. I admit it, Simon, I’m just not in your league.

But I won’t have time for that rubbish anyway. 2010 is going to be very exciting, if I can stay alive. In January begins a series of over 50 concerts with the incredible Helge Schneider. A new show was devised before the holidays and we played four times in the Mülheim Stadthalle, all sold out. Now we are all looking forward to taking this out to the whole of Germany in the next three months, including our delightful three weeks in Berlin. For those of you who don’t know Helge and his humour and music there is a lot on YouTube.

Also on YouTube is Pete York and the Susie Who Swing Revue, a little demo film shot at a freezing cold open-air concert. We shall be booking this in the New Year plus my trios and other combos.

I have no idea how many people read this but even if it’s only YOU alone let me wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year. I’m happy to still be out there playing drums with the love and support of my small family. Drop by and listen some day. You’ll be amazed!!!!!

The Great God Google does an intergalactically magnificent jog of distributing information both useful and trivial. But, beware, there are dyslexic gremlins lurking amongst its cyber workforce, mostly on Level J just past the Megabyte’s toilets. One of these has confused me with some Johnny Come Lately upstart called Pete Yorn.
You might read that I have done something with Scarlett Johansson. This would come as a big surprise to her and would also lead to a big surprise for me when my lovely wife of more than thirty years approaches me from behind with a polo mallet and a pair of secateurs.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Kim Basinger may be very keen to sing with my band but they have an understanding of the fabulous musical depth of the Great American Songbook, which is my kind of music. They are also very lonely.
But Scarlett, fine actress that she is, hasn’t progressed beyond the C & W brand of songstressing evident in “My cheatin’ bum of a husband ran off with a dog to Peoria in a semi-trailer truck. I believed he had a job in the stockyards, but he only went down for …some luck.”
Not my kind of music.

SPAMMED AND SCAMMED
Another warning – I recently ordered and paid for a DVD box set of the old Dean Martin Roasts from a mob called tvaddicts. Instead of the 12 DVDs of all the shows I eventually took delivery of rice-paper package from China which contained 4 DVDs in a cheap box with a picture of what looks like a young Peter Falk on the box.
One DVD opened up and proved to be a Best Of compilation lasting around 100 minutes. The other 3 DVDs were blank and didn’t display anything unless it was a cross-section of the moral fibre displayed by our politicians who took us into the Iraq war.
I complained savagely and threatened to send my mate, Cyril Radetzky, round with his brass knuckles, wooden teeth and steel balls.
Their representative in Florida or Canada or wherever the heck he was, name of Randy, mailed back to say that all would be put right.
Quite soon a new package arrived from China containing exactly the same garbage as before.
Cyril promises to arrive back here soon with a plastic bag containing certain vital parts of Randy, who will now have to change his name.
My advice is to check all these selling sites to see if complaints have appeared. I didn’t and lost out. Amazon is enough for me from now on.

Having been scammed once gives me cause to reflect on the ongoing spamming sneaking into my mail. I would herewith like to inform Dr Gloria Gristle, the Wellbeing  Stud Farm of Rydem, Nevada, the Church of What’s Happening and the Margaret Rutherford Trust that I am not interested in your tempting offers of Viagra. I bought some on the internet once and I have never been without friendly cyber contact since. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay chemist’s prices. Outrageous. The drug companies are amongst the most profitable on the planet and continue to extort from us all. Especially those of us whose insurance companies won’t cover the cost of a good time. So a little improvisation is called for to make up for the shortfall, so to speak. I’ll explain everything next time but you gentlemen might like to prepare yourselves by having a roll of gaffer tape and a few lolly sticks on hand.

My gigging life away from the Helge Schneider shows is certainly very varied. At the end of September I appeared on a Trade Fair which had nothing to do with music. The mail order business seems to be booming and my friends at W & Co, Alex and Katja and company, thought it would be eye and ear catching to have me drumming on their stand for a couple of days. Lots of smartly dressed business men were reminded of the music of their youths and wanted autographs and photos. I was reminded of why I gave up my job at GKN in Birmingham in 1964 to go on the road as a professional musician. Although I’ve never had much security in the intervening 45 years I have had some great experiences, some of which were musical.
From Wiesbaden I made the short trip to Kaiserslautern to play with Christoph Steinbach, Albert Koch and Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry). It was an evening of British Blues headed by Mick Taylor, who everybody treated with awe and respect although I can’t really think why. Own up, we’ve all been doing this since God was a boy. His crew carried on as though it was the second coming.
Our little combo fired the crowd up no end with some awesome blues and boogie plus versions of the old Spencer Tracy hits lead by piano and harmonica.
It made me wonder why I gave myself a hernia helping to carry that blasted organ all those years ago. I lifted up the harmonica with one hand, no sweat.

Then it was on to another gig, another band with my trio featuring the great musicianship of Kuno Kürner and Claus Koch. This took place in Deidesheim, another short journey, and was organised by an old friend, Yvonne Moissi.
We had a full house in the Stadthalle and swung mightily.
This tiny trio sounds like a big band at times and the soloing is stunning.

Back at home the following week I had three days filming some biographical material with Michael Osterhoff and his lovely wife, Ruth.
Mecky looked after us culinarily ??? and the weather was great so that we got gorgeous footage of a Bavarian autumn as background for my inane chatter.

I have been preparing a new programme with a young singer, Susie Who. She has a CD out which I found very attractive and we now have a swinging quintet to support our vocals.
We played our first gig at the Audi Forum in Neckarsulm and it was on an open stage in the middle of October. It was freezing and we all wore woolly underwear underneath our gold lame jump suits.
I was very proud of the boys and Susie gritted her chattering teeth and delivered a good show. We got some good video material out of the night which we shall use to get more work.
That seems to have been my life for years now, gigs and more gigs. I’ll be back out with Helge again before Christmas but right now it’s a challenge and fun to play a full show myself with all the drumming, singing and jollity which I think is expected of me.

I was able to get our trio version of the Gene Krupa Story onto the Ludwigsburg Drum Days. I met Lee Kerslake from Uriah Heep, Mike Terrana and a lot of percussion pals.
Marcel Vogelmann sets this up and it’s a real labour of love.
But then again, so much of playing music live is a labour of love. Tomorrow I’m off to Nuremberg for my PY Drum Show. Now that’ll be a trial for us all, boys and girls.

Blogging on to glory – as I attempt a solo crossing of the oceans of ether without a paddle with only a mouse to hold onto. 

So far it’s not so difficult. Words are appearing before me as I type but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to plaster them all over the website. 

I am gratified that some friends appear to have visited and we have weeded out the insulting and sometimes downright filthy comments. And as for you, Gladys Hagerty of Monmouth, I have never owned a wet-suit or a Ken Dodd mask let alone left displays of suggestive vegetables outside Mothercare.

How am I doing so far, Martin? This is the guy who, together with Andrea from W & Co, has been incredibly helpful in setting up this new site. I hope that my old webmaster, Gerhart, will soon be aboard again with enthusiasm and ideas.

I am off the road with Helge Schneider for a couple of months and taking the opportunity to play with some other line-ups. It’s all very varied. There has been a Beatles programme with the Bayerishe Kammerorchester which we performed in the open-air in the pouring rain but the audience didn’t seem to mind and demanded several encores.

There are some jazz trio gigs coming up and the first appearance of a young singer friend, Susie Who, with old Petelein as featured turn.  Have a look at her website. 

Down in deepest Austria recently I took the Saturday night spot on a great little festival in St Veit in the yard of an ancient castle. Jack Bruce and Stan Webb played on the Friday night. Stan and I talked a lot about jazz and Jack told me to stop talking during his sound-check. We called my band the Rising Sun Orchestra because my “House of the Rising Sun” project is slowly creeping towards its goal of being a theatre musical. We had a group of very accomplished performers – Albie Donnelly on tenor sax, Roy Herrington on guitar, Bolle Dieckmann on bass and Christoph “Boogiewolf” Steinbach on keyboards. Everybody took featured solos, the audience danced, Roy disappeared into the crowd and I sweated buckets even as the night time temperature plummeted.  Check out their website www.burgkultur.at for pix.

There are several nice gigs coming up and I’m looking forward to playing all the different styles I enjoy so much. Keep those messages coming in. It’s a thrill to hear from someone I haven’t seen for 50 years.

I’ve never blogged before, no honestly, officer. I’ve read that a Blog can be anything you want it to be and I also have no idea what that is. It’s just that everybody seems to do it and as I have enjoyed the many activities everybody else does, eating, drinking, sleeping and my favourite one, I thought I should try this.

First make a comment, then wait for feedback.

I’m not sure whether the music business is in a better state now than it was forty years ago when I started or whether it’s now more business than music.

When I started in music with Spencer Davis and Steve Winwood we played initially for fun and were surprised and happy when we found we could make a good living out of our hobby. We were easy prey for the sharks and more of this later.

We would be on the road playing concerts and then go out on the town looking for some club to have a jam session. We just wanted to play. I wonder if it’s the same for young bands today. I hope so because it’s a good way to improve. You have to keep doing it and TRYING TO GET GOOD, which, incidentally, is the title of a wonderful new DVD biography of Jack Sheldon.

The gig scene has shrunk, that’s for sure, and many promoters have struggled or gone under. Some touring shows do well, as is the case with Helge Schneider with whom I have been on the road since 2003. Other tours are cancelled due to poor ticket sales, or in the case of Michael Jackson, due to the most potent unforeseen circumstance of them all.

I was sorry that I couldn’t attend the memorial concert and pay my respects musically. I had prepared a 45 minute drum solo based on the percussion patterns from “Thriller” but then I thought if Elizabeth Taylor’s not going why should I.

As some of you will know, my wife Mecky and I have been living in Germany since 1984. I think many opportunities opened up for me such as the TV productions in the Eighties. “Super Drumming” has proved a long lived favourite and I constantly meet young drummers who watched the show avidly.

The parlous state of TV today with it’s never-ending reality dross is sad.

Live music on TV is almost gone and a show like “Super Drumming” will never be seen again. No production company would risk it although we had better viewing figures then, twenty years ago, than “Has Britain Got A Model Cook With The Talent To Open A Can With Her Knees” or “Really Cute Animals Playing Poker And Peeing” which are the top shows today.

Thank God for “Young Musician Of The Year” and Yah Boo Sucks to the Montreux Jazz Festival who don’t really feature any STRAIGHT AHEAD SWINGING jazz at all. Just call it the Montreux Music Fashionista Festival.

And to any drummer boys and girls out there looking for the quick way to dynamite chops, there ain’t one. You got to put the time in. So now it’s back to the drums for a little fun.

Health and happiness to all,

Pete