Venue:
Thekla, Bristol
Date: 26/04/2017
The return of big, bad, Barry…former bass player with Magazine, ex Bad Seed and all round cool guy. His latest album “Know Where to Run” slipped out late last year, missed by many (including me to begin with) and now he’s touring it, pepped up with a nifty EP “Love Sick Dick”. You do the meaning. A solo show, BA plays guitars, keyboards and i-phone. And it’s a seriously good show. He may be a bit greyer round the muzzle (aren’t we all all) and thicker at the hips (aren’t we all) but sunglasses and a fedora and he is seriously cool. And some seriously good new songs. First time he played Bristol was 40 years ago at the C*****n Hall as part of Magazine. A fair few in the audience were there(not me sadly) and as a reward he closed his encore with that great f*** off fascist anthem “The Light Pours Out of Me”. Glorious.
The audience:
Blokes mainly, but cool with it.
It made me think..
Heart beats up love
How do they manage to make a living? Minor players in bands that never really made much money in the first place but somehow avoid a real job?
I’m looking at you ex members of ‘Japan’.
One of my favourite sections in Q was “Where are they now?” I was constantly surprised at how many ex-members of bands who had one top 30 hit ten years before were still plugging away in London, usually on “dance-oriented material” that was due to be released on some label you’ve never heard of the next year.
A lot of them have “real jobs” on the quiet. The sort of jobs that enable them to bunk off and go on the occasional short tour to lose money flogging their dead horse.
Although actually, if you’re a solo performer who can fit their stage gear into a car, the cost of touring can be pretty minimal and you can break even or even make minimum wage. Small venues where the punters pay to see you, generally provide the PA etc. as part of the package. If you manage to sell a few CDs (or some vinyl) at the end, that helps too.
A friend plays bass for a known NWOBHM band and makes no money whatsoever from that. He also plays bass in a ’60s-’70s pop covers band on the local pub circuit and actually makes a few quid on each gig. His main source of income is painting & decorating. He gets by and enjoys getting out and about playing music.
Quite – although I don’t think BA is quite in that league; a few hundred paid £12.50 each the other night (and there was a healthy queue to buy CDs after) so what with that and production and film soundtrack work (and royalties?) he seems to be doing well enough to be talking about setting up a feature film.
Saw him a few years ago – just not enough / not good enough musos to do justice to the music. But also saw him at a record store show – just him singing to backing tracks from back to the cat – he was fantastic.
Here’s a clue;
http://barryadamson.com/lovesickpic/
Oi! I’ll have you know I have the hips of a teenage Japanese girl – although my muzzle is that of a bulldog that’s fallen face first into an ugly machine..
present company excepted….