Colin H on Being a Bandleader
On 10 January, I invited three of my local music associates, all bandleaders and ‘music lifers’, round for a cup of tea and a three-way interview session. In order of seniority, Dave ‘The Hat’ McLarnon is a punk veteran, Adele Ingram is chief songwriter with quirky all-girl hillbillies Wookalily, and Scott Flanigan is a piano/organ jazz sensation with a splendid line in wit.
Northern Ireland is an isolated region in various senses, and all three have tried, and/or are still trying, to make an impact in their field beyond the locale, while trying to make a living within it. I’ve skirted around the music scene(s) in Belfast since the early 90s, never particularly at the core of anything but around the edges of several things – as, at various times, a local newspaper feature writer, events/recordings organiser, general cheerleader and occasional mentor/advisor – and I’m always intrigued when I find musicians I’ve known for years who have shared the same timeline and geographical space for decades and yet have never previously met.
Even within the ‘rock world’ I found this recently, when I had the great pleasure of pulling together a charity show in September past, featuring fabulous reunions of various bands associated with a legendary Belfast venue, The Warehouse, which ran from 1994-96. Former Peacefrog member Dave ‘The Hat’ McLarnon (known as Dave ‘The Beard’ McLarnon in those days, thanks to a quite sensational black paintbrush beard) was keen to perform and I asked my good pal Ali MacKenzie, burbling bass maestro with many Belfast blues and rock acts, exactly matching Dave’s musical timeline, to join a one-off ‘Hat Band’ for the occasion. Amazingly, the pair had never met. They’d played the same venues in the same city at the same time… (As an aside, the Hat Band performance was fantastic, and it will ride again at the next ‘Warehouse Remembered’ gig in March.)
Less surprisingly, perhaps, my three interview guests – each one of whom is, individually, a regular pavement café crony of myself (a benefit of self-employment) – had never met before. Keen discographers may suggest that both Adele Ingram and Scott Flanigan appeared together on my punk protest song/video ‘Smash the System’ – but that would be based on a common misunderstanding, for it was in fact *Flatts Conigan* who was on that session – albeit, Flatts being a man who bears an extraordinary resemblance to Scott Flanigan, who seems to have all his licks down, and who tends to get the Colin H-related bookings that are turned down by Scott on the basis of reputational danger.
Adele and Dave had almost met before, when Dave’s revived version of his punk vehicle Shock Treatment had been booked for a small-town festival gig at a pub directly after a Wookalily gig on the same premises.
I’d been at that show, leaving with the Wookas just as Dave and the boys arrived, but I hadn’t twigged then that Dave ‘The Hat’ was someone I’d met a couple of times in the 90s, when he was a member of stadium-rockers-in-search-of-a-stadium Peacefrog. In fact, he had to point this out when I attended, a year or so back, a Bangor pub gig by his dramatically reactivated early 70s school band Sunset. The reason I was there was to see punk legend Petesy Burns (who most definitely was on ‘Smash the System’) playing bass in this revived progressive-rock band – revived earlier that year for a tribute show to a deceased former member, John Crawford (a popular figure and serial band-joiner on the local music scene for many years). The chance to see Petesy, the kingpin of Ulster punk – and a brilliant musician on guitar, bass and drums – playing Wishbone Ash covers simply couldn’t be missed. Before the show, a man in a hat, with a now silvery and more deftly maintained beard, who turned out to be the leader of the band, introduced himself…
Since then, I’ve seen Dave McLarnon’s Sunset several times. It’s a remarkable outfit – a sort of elderly version of the revived prog-rockers in the comedy film ‘Still Crazy’ – featuring a load of fascinating characters, all of whom come with astoundingly appropriate stage-names: Waldo Comfy on lead vocals, Cosmo Serious on lead guitar, Barry Brickhouse on rhythm, guitar, Johnny Dental on drums. Okay, I may have been responsible for those names… Petesy is the new recruit on bass (replacing a 70s incumbent who sight-read parts but not necessarily at the right time) and Dave ‘The Hat’ is on vocals, guitar, repertoire, organising…
One day, at a pavement café session with Petesy and Dave, I was told that Petesy couldn’t make that evening’s rehearsal, first sub Ali MacKenzie couldn’t make it either, and so I was going to do it… Having never played a bass before, I gave it a go – Dave just needed some ‘bottom end’ – and it was a most enjoyable experience, and most instructive too. I got to see close-up the role that Dave plays – a kind of ringleader, cheerleader, and lightning rod of energy. He was the youngest Sunset back in the day, and now it’s like he’s the shot in the arm for the rest – a delightful gang of bourgeois bohemians with a litany of health issues kicking away the drips and rocking out once again. And they can really play!
Seeing mild-mannered Dave’s role as this bundle of energy in corralling a perhaps unlikely coterie of characters together, in the cavernous garage of a private dental practice up the Lisburn Road (yes, care of Johnny Dental on drums), was a real eye-opener. This is what music should be about – creating joy, funnelling passion, having fun. And for me – others, I know, who are into simple music and simple music only will disagree – it really helps if there is some level of sophistication and ‘musicianliness’ there. I could see, though, that it took a lot of unseen behind-the-curtains skill from Dave to make it happen.
Both Wookalily and Scott Flanigan are sophisticated in different ways. Wookalily perform very largely original music, a sort of ‘folk noir’ these days, certainly Americana-ish, with very tightly figured out arrangements. I love Adele’s songs. Well, most of them. There are a number of multi-instrumentalists in the band – one member playing fiddle, mandolin, flute, piano, concertina, lead guitar, etc. – and at least a couple are capable of improvisation, but they don’t generally improvise. Coming from bluegrass originally, where it’s all about everybody playing the tune (with short set-piece solos), that’s what the Wookas do. They’ll do the odd tightly-rehearsed bluegrass tune onstage sometimes. I’ve watched them over the past five years journeying from somewhat shambolic stage operators, where people fumbled around swapping instruments like a Laurel & Hardy routine every other song, and the banjo amplification never worked, to (now) a finely-oiled performing machine. They are still loveably shambolic in other ways, in the sense that a recent album launch event had all sorts of lovingly handmade craft items and confectionary on different tables, relating to the titles/subjects of songs on the album, and yet no one had thought to book anyone to take money at the door. That’s Wookaworld for you.
As for Scott, he’s an astonishing musician – a brilliant improviser and composer of fine music within the melodic vein of piano-trio jazz – who is always willing to help other people, whether sitting in on essentially one-chord modal blues at high volume with my pal Lonesome Chris Todd’s electric band at odd gigs or playing on some of my own projects, where I’ve tried to give him space and free rein to do what he does best. His fabulous playing on the recent ‘Don’t Go to Nashville’ by the Legends of Tomorrow – recorded in one take after sitting around for two or three hours while other people did their thing – is a brilliant example. Or was that Flatts Conigan…? He’s also a splendid jazz organist, and has performed on organ in the Larry Young role in ‘Tommy Halferty’s Lifetime’, an occasional Tony Williams/John McLaughlin tribute trio led by the Dublin guitarist. Anyway…
I thought it would be fun, and hopefully instructive, to bring Scott, Dave and Adele together for a discussion about bandleading, musical pasts and musical futures. So here, only lightly edited, is what they had to say.
(Interview in the Comments)
INTERVIEWER: We’ll do this in reverse alphabetical order because Adele’s the most scared, so Scott, Dave and Adele…
ADELE: And make me sit in agony!
INTERVIEWER: First, introduce yourselves – imagine this is a Radio Norwich interview and nobody knows who you are.
SCOTT: I’m Scott Flanigan, I’m a pianist, organist and a composer and I pretty much live in my car – all the time.
DAVE: Good! I’m Davy McLarnon, or Davy Treatment – I prefer to be called David but somehow over the years it’s become either Davy or Dave, most recently Dave ‘The Hat’. I’ve been involved in music from schooldays, way back in the mid-70s, probably best-known for my role in the punk band Shock Treatment and more latterly the rock’n’roll band Peacefrog…
INTERVIEWER: Well, when you say ‘more latterly’ that was 25 years ago!
DAVE: Er, yes, that was the mid-90s. And then bringing back Shock Treatment in a modern-day version more recently.
INTERVIEWER: But it’s fair to say that you also run a progressive-rock band…
DAVE: Well, that band dates way back to when I was first at ‘big school’ and the guys that I worshipped, and I eventually got the call-up – and that band still goes to this day, the Sunset band.
INTERVIEWER: And Adele…
ADELE: Do you want a biography?
INTERVIEWER: No, an off-the-cuff precis of a biography.
ADELE: Okay… I’m Adele and I play in a band called Wookalily…
INTERVIEWER: That’s great. Now, moving on… (laughs all round, tension broken)
ADELE: …which I founded. I’m a songwriter, I play guitar, mandolin, banjo. I’ve been a music promoter in the past, and a booking agent and a festival programmer. And I was in a pipe band! (more laughs all round)
DAVE: As a piper?
ADELE: As a piper.
INTERVIEWER: So, as a supplementary question to that one, Scott: why jazz?
SCOTT: Why not! Why doesn’t everybody get into jazz? Actually, I have a somewhat awkward relationship – or at least used to have – with jazz. I was a classical pianist. I was that nerdy kid at school who went to piano lessons and was always at the piano…
DAVE: I went to piano lessons too. When I went into the room, the teacher left. (laughs) That’s true!
SCOTT: Sounds like a great teacher! Those are the kind of lessons I would have loved. I had my heart set on being a classical pianist but then the school jazz band said, ‘We need a piano player – can you do it?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know anything about jazz. In fact, I don’t really like jazz… but okay, I’ll do it anyway.’ So, I joined the jazz band, and I didn’t like it at all…
INTERVIEWER: And the rest is history… (laughs)
SCOTT: I was called up to the Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra, which was the all-Northern-Ireland schools jazz orchestra, and I still didn’t really like it. But then one day I decided to go and listen to some of the stuff that we’d been playing for three or four years and I realised, ‘Maybe this isn’t so bad after all’.
INTERVIEWER: So it was just your own versions of it that you didn’t like?
SCOTT: No, it was more that I didn’t like that sound of it because I didn’t know what was going on.
INTERVIEWER: But, sorry, isn’t that jazz? (laughs all round)
DAVE: Did you come across Keith McVeigh?
SCOTT: Yes, I know Keith.
DAVE: Keith’s in my band [Shock Treatment, current version].
SCOTT: It’s a small world.
INTERVIEWER: When you say ‘in my band’…
DAVE: Well, at this moment in time, prior to impending surgery. I don’t know whether he’ll come back after that.
INTERVIEWER: Dave: why punk?
DAVE: Why punk? Well, because it allowed me to be able to play to people without having to be Grade 8 standard, Rory Gallagher-esque… You know, every year we went to see Rory at Christmas [at the Ulster Hall] and I would go, ‘Flip me, I’ll never, ever play the guitar like that’…
INTERVIEWER: And you’ve lived up to that promise!
DAVE: Absolutely! I hold my hands up – I’m somebody who can sing a bit and who can play a wee bit of guitar. But at one of those gigs I said to myself, ‘Some day I’m gonna play the Ulster Hall’, and I subsequently did.
INTERVIEWER: Ah, very good. With Shock Treatment?
DAVE: With Shock Treatment [three times] and Peacefrog.
SCOTT: Can I just jump in and say Rory Gallagher was the first ever gig that I went to – in my pram. My dad was a massive Rory fan, he adored Rory – and he still plays a bit of blues-rock guitar, in the house. So, at the age of about two or three, my very first memory is being taken to a Rory gig.
INTERVIEWER: Wow! And did any of his licks influence you at that stage?
SCOTT: I’m still playing them to this day! (laughs all round) I transcribed them all in the pram.
ADELE: You actually remember that?
DAVE: I always liked the idea of playing to people and writing songs, and punk gave me the vehicle to do it.
INTERVIEWER: But Dave, is not fair to say that you’re perhaps underrated?
DAVE: Well, some people might say that. I don’t.
INTERVIEWER: Adele: why folk?
ADELE: I don’t like folk – people! (laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Very good! Well, bluegrass, acoustic music, Americana – why that?
ADELE: Well, I was brought up with country music, Hank Williams and people like that. My dad listened to them and he played in a country band and a ceili band. So, through my rebellious years I started to listen to heavy metal. So my musical tastes have been like a pendulum, going to extremes. Then I started listening to bluegrass.
INTERVIEWER: Was that the ultimate rebellion – banjos? (laughs)
ADELE: It was just the opposite end of the scale, and I’ve settled at folk and blues and rock – just a wee bit of everything, as long as it’s good.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, the second question…
DAVE: This is just the second question?
INTERVIEWER: Yes, we’ve had question one and a supplement to that. So, income-wise and psychologically, how full-time are you as musicians?
SCOTT: I’m totally full-time in that this is how I make my living – playing music and teaching music [giving private piano lessons].
INTERVIEWER: But you’re also currently doing a music PhD…
SCOTT: Yes, and that also has some income benefits. But psychologically, any time I’m not at the piano, I’m still thinking about the piano, still thinking about chords and scales and stuff. And not just because of this PhD, but because I really love this music, and jazz in particular is the ultimate nerdy science music…
INTERVIEWER: Is it not an art, though? Bach is the ultimate musical science, surely?
SCOTT: Well, for me, jazz is the ultimate combination of science meets art meets creativity meets technique, and all these things kind of converge to have this one totally weird music, and that’s jazz.
INTERVIEWER: And given the nature of jazz history, there’s an element of ‘stamp collecting’ about it as well, isn’t there?
SCOTT: Jazz history – you could talk all day about that. Jazz has done everything in 100 years that classical music has done in 500 years and there absolutely is an element of stamp collecting about it. There’s also an element of beard-stroking about it – I’m stroking my non-existent beard right now. It’s the kind of music that… There’s always some kind of jazz that people like.
INTERVIEWER: I see Dave struggling with that! (laughs)
SCOTT: Well, hang on, hang on… I’ve a friend, a guitar player, and his dad was a well-known Irish educator in jazz. As a kid he wasn’t interested in jazz – that was his dad’s music. It’s the ultimate insult, really – ‘It’s my dad’s music’. This guy was a metaller, really interested in rocking out, but then he heard this player called Kurt Rosenwinkel, who’s kind of metal meets jazz, and from there it was, ‘Okay, I get it’. For me, I come from a classical background into jazz, and there are loads of jazz players influenced by classical music. So there is a kind of jazz that interests everybody.
INTERVIEWER: Of course, in the 1960s there was a bit of a jazz-plus-classical dead end, so-called Third Stream music…
SCOTT: Third Stream stuff is very interesting. Yes, it did die out but it’s made a slight resurgence in recent times in that a lot of the players coming through now are very interested in classical music – certainly the ones I listen to. So even though it kind of died out in the late 60s / early 70s, it’s ‘never really gone away, you know’ [sinister Gerry Adams reference]. (laughs) There’s still people doing it. You could say the same about free jazz – massively popular in the early 60s [ED: take ‘massively’ with a pinch of salt]. And it’s still there…
INTERVIEWER: Still looking for the tune?
SCOTT: Still looking for a way to end the tune! (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: So, Dave – same question – income-wise and psychologically, how full-time are you as a musician?
DAVE: Okay, well, having retired and escaped and become free in the last six months I’m full-time – in both senses.
INTERVIEWER: Indeed. And I notice you use ‘Poet’ as your occupation on Facebook, as opposed to Emeritus Professor of Podiatry…
DAVE: There’s tongue in cheek there…
INTERVIEWER: There shouldn’t be. You’re free…
DAVE: Let’s go back to Shock Treatment. Out of school, parents want you to go to university, ‘Okay, what could I do with these poor grades? I see – Microbiology.’ Off you go, do a couple of years of that. Whilst you’re there, meet lots of other punk-rockers, form a band…
INTERVIEWER: What? They were all doing Microbiology?
DAVE: Lots of them. And some of them were doing History at Trinity. So, in second year I didn’t go to any lectures. Went to university religiously every day, parents thought it was great, ‘There he is, eight o’clock, he’s off to uni – great man!’ But there I was playing Space Invaders, a bit of snooker, meeting the punks – didn’t go to anything. Eventually, I had to tell my dad, ‘Actually, I think I’m going to get kicked out here…’ He said, ‘That’s fine. What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m going to be a musician’. ‘Great.’ And I thought, ‘Ah, this is going really well’. He said, ‘The proviso is, you’re not allowed to sign on the dole. You can be a musician all you want, son, but you have to earn your way.’ So, that’s what I did for two years – luckily, living at home.
INTERVIEWER: So, you were a full-time punk!
DAVE: Yes, a full-time punk for two years – 1980–81, maybe into ’82. At that point he handed me a prospectus for the tech. I leafed through it and thought, ‘Ah, Chiropody – I’ll do that’. Moving on, ‘91, ‘92, ‘93, around then, I’m with Peacefrog at that stage, while moving up through the world of what was now called podiatry. At that point, I was going to jack the job in ‘cos there was talk of cuts and so on, but in the end I didn’t jump. Peacefrog ended around ’95.
INTERVIEWER: It must have been ’96, because the Frogs appeared on the ‘Live at the Belfast Empire’ CD in that year [a multi-artist live album organised by CH].
DAVE: Yes, the recording on that album [‘Heart of Stone’], there’s very little heart in it, really. So, as you know, I’ve retired now…
INTERVIEWER: Having become, I believe, one of the big cheeses in the NI podiatry scene…
DAVE: Well, I did alright. It paid the bills!
INTERVIEWER: So, Adele: how full-time are you as a musician?
ADELE: Income-wise, it’s heavily subsidised. I care for my parents as well, so if it wasn’t for that I’d be a bit broke.
INTERVIEWER: Though you’ve had times, when you were active as a booking agent, when you were more full-time in music…
ADELE: Yeah, it was a full-time business for about 10 years.
INTERVIEWER: This was in the early 2000s, wasn’t it?
ADELE: I’ve no idea! (laughs all round) Psychologically, it’s full-time, though, because I never switch off from it – I’m constantly on my phone. I’m probably more on my phone and my laptop than I am on my guitar, which is unfortunate.
INTERVIEWER: So you’re a full-time music administrator…
ADELE: Exactly. It has to be done. Somebody has to do it.
INTERVIEWER: Yet you are the chief songwriter in Wookalily so you obviously do find time to write those songs…
ADELE: Not very often. I’m not a prolific songwriter. I would have inspiration maybe once or twice a year – and then I would write two or three songs at the same time. Lyndsay and Claire also write.
DAVE: There’s one in every band who has to take the reins, to make the thing drive, or it would fall apart.
INTERVIEWER: Question 3 – based on something Scott once told me, which I’m hoping he’ll repeat: do you have criteria on whether to accept a booking?
SCOTT: Oh yes, absolutely! This is very easy for me – I pretty much say yes to everything. Because I’m a full-time musician! (laughs all round) The more serious point is, for me, there’s three things you can get out of a gig: good music, good craic, good money. And if you get two, you’re doing okay. So I would quite happily take on a gig that has no money but has great music and great craic. (pause) I seem to be doing quite a lot of those! (laughs) The bank balance isn’t so healthy but artistically it’s fantastic.
INTERVIEWER: And if a gig has only one of those?
SCOTT: It needs to be very, very, very good in order for me to consider. But usually most gigs have two of the above.
INTERVIEWER: Yourself, Dave?
DAVE: The same – very much so. You’re lucky to get two out of the three, usually.
INTERVIEWER: Adele?
ADELE: Ermmm… it wouldn’t be about the craic, for me. It’s all about the money! (laughs all round)
DAVE: I admire your honesty!
ADELE: I have to consider four other people, so it’s whether everyone’s free, for one thing, and whether the money’s right. If it’s a local gig and the money’s not great, that’s okay. But if it’s really far away – we’ve to take three cars to every gig, cos we’ve so much equipment, so if we’re going to be out it’s not worth it for us. But we also like to do a couple of charity gigs in a year as well. So… it’s not all about the money! (laughs) But we do have to eat. And time is an element as well – if people don’t have the time [to accommodate a particular gig].
INTERVIEWER: Good answer. Next question to Scott: what did you achieve in the last year?
SCOTT: Emmmm… I had quite an interesting year in that on this day last year, early January, I drove to London, my car filled with Hammond organ paraphernalia, met up with a couple of fairly heavy hitters on the London jazz scene and recorded an album.
INTERVIEWER: You’re talking about O’Higgins and Luft?
SCOTT: Yes, Dave O’Higgins and Rob Luft. And we recorded an album of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane tunes, which we thought would maybe get a handful of dates, and that’d be great, but it turned into a 40-date English tour.
INTERVIEWER: That’s almost an oxymoron with a jazz act, isn’t it?
SCOTT: Well, I don’t know any other jazz tours of that size. Admittedly, it was all England and Wales and we didn’t even go to the north of England let alone Scotland…
INTERVIEWER: Does that reflect what the jazz scene is like in England? Is it a Home Counties sort of thing?
SCOTT: Yes, it does reflect that. It also reflects that Dave O’Higgins is the nation’s favourite saxophone player and was once in an episode of ‘Mr Bean’, as a busking sax player.
INTERVIEWER: So the Mr Bean diehards came out, then?
SCOTT: Yes. But he’s a phenomenal sax player and people really enjoy his music. Everywhere we went we had great crowds, great music and it was really nice to do some really serious gigs of really *great* music to listening audiences – because very often as a jazz player you’re playing to people who aren’t interested, you’re playing in the background. That’s the money gig.
INTERVIEWER: It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the money gigs – corporate gigs, piano bars, weddings – are the ones where nobody’s interested while the gigs with people who *are* interested are generally the ones with no money!
SCOTT: Well, this tour had all three – great craic, great money and the music was fantastic. Playing with those guys was great. So that was a real highlight for me – spending three months basically touring England with some incredible musicians.
INTERVIEWER: That may not happen again – though you must hope that it does!
SCOTT: I certainly hope that it does. And in your follow-up podcast I’ll tell you all the funny stories from the tour. (laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Am I right in thinking that you’ve recorded a follow-up solo album to ‘Point of Departure’ (2015), with another travelling metaphor title?
SCOTT: Without the travelling metaphor, thankfully. That was the other big highlight. I was very kindly offered a commission by [NI promoter/public-funding-funneller] Moving On Music and the PRS to write a suite of music for the Brilliant Corners jazz festival, which all came together rather hurriedly just before the gig. We then did a six- or seven-date tour around Ireland and recorded the music as well, in a studio. That was all on piano [rather than Hamond]. We recorded it in Dublin and it’s due out in June.
INTERVIEWER: Who are the players?
SCOTT: Ant Law, a London guitar player, and Dave Redmond and Kevin Brady, both from Dublin.
INTERVIEWER: Dave: what did you achieve last year?
DAVE: Freedom.
INTERVIEWER: Excellent. Moving on… (laughs all round)
DAVE: As you know, I retired from my public sector job in the summer. So, I’ve achieved that freedom, and I’ve bought a lot of home recording equipment and started to dabble in that. We’ve kept Shock Treatment going throughout the year despite a few, er, health hiccups, which I mentioned earlier…
INTERVIEWER: And of course you’ve done a few gigs with your progressive-rock band, Sunset – which is like a walking medical ward…
DAVE: It is like a walking medical ward, yes, but it’s probably the healthiest band I’m in now! That’s been brilliant fun, and we’ve two great gigs lined up for this year…
INTERVIEWER: We’ll come to those in a moment. But you also performed at the ‘Warehouse Remembered’ charity gig with an all-star line-up [Ali MacKenzie on bass, from the Bush Turkeys; Bob Moody on drums, from Stonefish; and Lonesome Chris Todd on lead guitar, from the Hardchargers]…
DAVE: Yes, the Hat Band – the best and most established band I’m in now! And who knows who’s in it? That’s been brilliant – and that’s down to you…
SCOTT: I believe you’ve also licensed a Shock Treatment track to a forthcoming Ulster punk box set…
DAVE: Yes, on Cherry Red. They got in touch and ‘Mr Mystery Man’, the B-side to ‘Big Check Shirts’, which was the second Shock Treatment single [1981], will be on that.
INTERVIEWER: Is it one of your great recordings?
DAVE: It’s, it’s… it’s a magnificent piece of work! It was described at the time as a ‘meisterwork’, which in the hands of the right producer would have been a classic. However… Also, I’ve re-established contact with Barry McIlheney, the original lead singer of Shock Treatment and a publishing legend – he’s had a big career in [magazine] publishing. We met over Christmas and started fiddling around with a few ideas, so something will happen there this year. So, lots to do, and so much back catalogue to do things with and [nodding at CH] people to help me!
INTERVIEWER: Adele: what did you achieve last year?
ADELE: We finally released our second album, recorded over two years ago.
INTERVIEWER: That was quite a tortuous process, wasn’t it?
ADELE: Er… no! The recording was fine. It took six days to record [at an analogue studio]. We went back a couple of times to fix a few things, but the recording process was fine. There was illness in the band, so that delayed things…
[At this point, Adele details various logistical and outsourcing issues that she would prefer to draw a veil over]
INTERVIEWER: But you finally have a second album available…
ADELE: Yeah. It’s not on Spotify or any other streaming sites yet.
INTERVIEWER: Ethically, you’re against them…
ADELE: Well, our producer didn’t think it was the right time but also, yes, they don’t pay artists very fairly, so we kind of took a stand against it. But we’re going to bite the bullet and release it on all platforms this year at some point.
INTERVIEWER: Next question, starting with Scott: what do you hope to achieve this year?
SCOTT: What do I hope to achieve? Well, firstly, I have an album coming out in June, with a 10-date tour, which should be nice. Five dates confirmed so far.
INTERVIEWER: You keep doing tours – a jazzman doing tours! It’s almost unheard of…
SCOTT: Well, it is and it isn’t – it’s quite easy to get a tour together; it’s just getting people and/or money! (laughs all round) You can get the gig but you can’t always get the money! I have another couple of nice gigs coming up. I’m off to Mexico in March, which should be fun, and I’m hoping – fingers crossed – to start a local jazz gig, in Belfast.
INTERVIEWER: You’ve got a venue in mind?
SCOTT: I do have a venue. Can’t say where it is yet, but that will hopefully be a really nice gig.
INTERVIEWER: That’s really what Belfast is missing [Bert’s Jazz Bar – only half a notch above being a background piano bar, in an expensive hotel environment, doesn’t count]
ADELE: There’s a jazz gig in the American Bar…
SCOTT: Yes, there’s a few smaller things. The one in the American Bar runs once a month. I’m looking to start a nice regular gig. Having seen how they’ve done it in Dublin and London, it’s a case of getting a regular gig where people are walking past and they’re going to come in and where players will come down knowing they’ll get a chance to play.
INTERVIEWER: Is the new album sensational?
SCOTT: You’ll have to buy it and see! It’s called ‘Clouded Lines’.
INTERVIEWER: Dave: what do you hope to achieve this year – the Bazza McIlheney reunion, I imagine?
DAVE: Yes, that’ll be part of it – recording and live. But I need to re-establish the line-up of the [current] Shock Treatment band. Keith, I don’t think, will be re-joining us [after his surgery]. That’s his frame of mind at the moment. We did two gigs recently where we had Aidan Murtagh on guitar, from Protex, and that worked quite well. There’s a couple of other names [in the mix] – a couple of fine guitarists. One of them I’ve approached and he’s mulling it over…
INTERVIEWER: Does his name rhyme with ‘Norman Boyd’ [legendary Stonefish guitar hero] by any chance?
DAVE: No, it doesn’t.
INTERVIEWER: You’ve missed a trick there.
DAVE: Well, possibly, though it may rhyme with another name you know…
SCOTT: I find people always say yes if you pay them enough…
DAVE: The problem is, we can’t! But a band like Shock Treatment *can* promise the other two things you talked about.
SCOTT: Duke Ellington said, ‘Every band has a gimmick to keep them together and my gimmick is money’! (laughs all round)
DAVE: Excellent! So, yes, the Bazza McIlheney thing, getting Shock Treatment back…
INTERVIEWER: And your back catalogue?
DAVE: Yeah, there’s some guy who keeps talking about that! But yes, lets do something there. It’s a huge back catalogue with much to do. There’s a least 10 albums’ worth.
INTERVIEWER: A downloadable box set. And of course there’s a second ‘Warehouse Remembered’ charity event coming up, in March…
DAVE: Yes, with the Hat Band – and who knows who’ll be in it this time? And the Sunset boys have two great gigs coming up, including the North-West 200 [a local motorcycling event] with guest DJ Terri Hooley. He was delighted to tell me that! There’s also a collaboration with Paul Burgess, from Ruefrex. We did the ‘Shane MacGowan’s Smile’ single last year [find the video on YouTube], and we’re planning to do another version this year with a female voice. And I’ve also promised, for about the tenth year in a row, to do a version with Rose Kelly of her song ‘Sixteen Little Pieces’.
INTERVIEWER: And Adele?
ADELE: I’d like a cup of tea. (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: That’s what you hope to achieve in 2020 – a cup of tea!
ADELE: I’d like some recognition for the album we’ve just released – some reviews, some radio play.
INTERVIEWER: It’s tough out there, isn’t it?
ADELE: It’s very tough. [At this point, Adele explains various unhappy dealings with music business professionals that, to my mind, she far-too-generously wishes not to admonish in public] But anyway… I got a lap steel for Christmas, so I’m going to learn how to play it, and I’m also learning PhotoShop and Adobe Premiere to learn how to do music video editing, so we don’t have to pay anyone else to do it.
INTERVIEWER: Scott alluded to funding earlier [Arts Council and PRS funding awards]. There are opportunities in the jazz world for such funding, and there are opportunities in the Americana world for such funding [Belfast is twinned with Nashville] – but you never seem to get any.
ADELE: We haven’t tried a lot. We’ve maybe applied two or three times but not got anything.
INTERVIEWER: There’s not a lot of public funding available in the punk world, is there Dave?
DAVE: None that I know of.
INTERVIEWER: So, a brief answer to this one, if you may…
SCOTT: This is a fingers-on-buzzers round?
INTERVIEWER: Yes. Music-making in Northern Ireland: on balance, advantageous or a huge inconvenience?
SCOTT: A huge inconvenience.
INTERVIEWER: Dave? Has living in NI held you back or do you enjoy being a big fish in a limited scene?
DAVE: There’s probably part of that. But no, there’s no advantage to be gained from living in Northern Ireland.
INTERVIEWER: Adele?
ADELE: A huge disadvantage. There’s no infrastructure here, no industry.
INTERVIEWER: And the cost of touring in England…
ADELE: Oh, it’s colossal. That tiny bit of water… is a pain in the ass!
SCOTT: It’s the same for jazz players. One of the players I played with last year played in Derry recently, with somebody else’s band, and he said, ‘I’ve played music on eight continents but I’ve never been to Ireland’ – and he lives in London…
DAVE & ADELE: Wow! (in harmony)
SCOTT: …an hour away.
INTERVIEWER: When you say ‘eight continents’…
SCOTT: Well, however many continents there are!
ADELE: It’s more expensive for us to go to England than it is the other way around.
SCOTT: It’s just that piece of water. It’s not the money, it’s a societal thing. If you’re not from London [as a jazz musician], people from London aren’t really going to be listening to what you’re doing, they’re not really interested. Likewise, people from Dublin, to an extent, aren’t really going to be interested in what’s going on in the North.
ADELE: But even locally, if you’re not playing Country & Western or in an indie-pop band, there’s no support for anything outside of that.
INTERVIEWER: But in a way, the punks made a virtue out of the isolation, because ‘Ulster punk’ is a ‘thing’ – a bit like Australia’s ecosystem, it became a distinct entity.
DAVE: Well, yes, you have to admire Terri [Hooley, founder of seminal Belfast punk label Good Vibrations] for what he did, but at the same time he’s made a career out of it. But it’s certainly something that has survived, and there’s still a scene.
INTERVIEWER: Is there such a thing, Scott, as an ‘Irish jazz scene’ that means anything anywhere else or is it just a case of the Irish jazzers all huddling together to keep warm?
SCOTT: It’s very much that. In terms of hierarchy, the London scene would be very healthy, the Irish scene – which exists mostly in Dublin – is a healthy-ish scene…
INTERVIEWER: Although Dublin’s jazz scene has always struggled when it comes to venues…
SCOTT: And still does. But it’s hard to become relevant if you’re from the North.
INTERVIEWER: Do you not rise to the challenge and say, ‘Everything’s against me, I’m going to punch above my weight’?
SCOTT: Some people will take that attitude…
INTERVIEWER: …whereas you just fly to where the tours are! (laughs)
SCOTT: Being one of the two jazz organists in the country [i.e. the island] affords me some possibilities that, if I played the drums, wouldn’t be so obvious! (laughs all round) Let’s just say I’ve made it work for me!
INTERVIEWER: Adele, I’ve always found this curious: Northern Ireland has a peculiar, obsessive interest in bluegrass [e.g. a long-established annual bluegrass festival and earnest bluegrass sessions all over the place], which is at the core of what you do, if not exactly what you do…
ADELE: Well, it was kind of there when we started but it’s not there [so much] now. We’ve gone in a different direction.
INTERVIEWER: So now you can’t even get the bluegrass gigs?
ADELE: No! (laughs) We never really were accepted by bluegrass trad-heads anyway because we had drums. If you can beat it or blow it, it’s not bluegrass, we were told.
DAVE: Going back to that punk thing, there’s no doubt that’s there’s gigs to be had in Europe, gigs to be had in Japan, if you can say ‘Ulster punk’ and more if you can say ‘We were a Good Vibes band’.
INTERVIEWER: Exactly. While I suspect there’s not the same cachet if you go to New York and say ‘I’m an Irish jazzman’.
SCOTT: Definitely not! If you go there and say you’re from the London jazz scene, people will take you quite seriously. But ‘I’m from Belfast’? So what!
ADELE: Wookalily kind of don’t fit in anywhere.
INTERVIEWER: Great! (laughs all round) Next question: what’s the secret of successful bandleading?
SCOTT: I had this conversation with someone just recently, so I do have a few thoughts on this…
INTERVIEWER: The others will be thinking furiously as you speak…
DAVE: I am!
SCOTT: In some ways, a good band needs a dictator in it. Too often I’ve been in jazz bands where people are saying, ‘What do you think? What’s your opinion?’ Whereas, if I go to my band with a composition, I know how I want it to sound. Yes, thanks very much for your input, and I might take it on board, but I really know how I want it to sound. So, I’m going to be that dictator.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t imagine Duke Ellington went to his players and said, ‘Any ideas, lads?’
SCOTT: Well, he wrote *for* his particular players…
INTERVIEWER: You’re right! Bad example. Charles Mingus is a better one…
SCOTT: Yes. I think certain bands, in jazz, can suffer from too many ideas. In my band, I’m the composer-in-chief. I’m going to bring the tunes, here’s how I want them to sound, let’s play them.
INTERVIEWER: The interesting thing in the jazz world, unlike perhaps most other genres, where bands tend to be set entities, is that it’s very fluid – it’s based more on short-term collaborations between players. There’s always a headline name on the record/recording session, and if it’s your name, people expect it to be ‘your’ musical vision.
SCOTT: I’m struggling to think of ‘bands’ in jazz that are ‘a band’, bar acts like Weather Report in the 70s. But even within that band, there was still chopping and changing. I always think that jazz musicians are like lightbulbs – you can just take one out and put another in. You can put two double bass players in a room and they’re going to make great music. Now, whether anyone’s going to pay to see it’s another thing! (laughs)
INTERVIEWER: If somebody isn’t working out in a particular ensemble of players, the culture of jazz is such that you could quite easily replace that person with no acrimony. Whereas, with a rock band, at the first sign of a recording or publishing deal, there’s in-fighting because unless there’s an existing ‘band agreement’ on paper, everybody wants their name on a percentage of the arrangements or whatever’s on offer. A rock band becomes very much a legal entity, whereas that doesn’t seem to exist in the jazz world.
SCOTT: Yes, just as an example, the tour I did with my own music last year – two days before the first gig, the drummer phoned me and said, ‘Look, my girlfriend’s going into hospital. I can’t do your tour.’ So, I’m thinking, ‘Who am I going to get?’ I ended up getting two or three drummers throughout the tour. I mean, the music was okay – we made the gig work, because jazz musicians have that sort of infinite back catalogue. ‘Let’s all pick tunes we know’ – but we can still all bring our own personalities to the fore.
INTERVIEWER: So, people heard an awful lot of ‘Stella by Starlight’ on that tour?
SCOTT: Well, that’s no bad thing!
INTERVIEWER: Dave – what’s your view, after 40 years of successful bandleading?
DAVE: Well, I think away from the music first of all, you’re right: you’re a dictator, a manager, a booking agent, an administrator, the diary holder, the diary holder reminder – you’re all of those things. And without that, the band won’t function.
INTERVIEWER: I’m not so sure about jazz, but the kind of people attracted to being in bands tend to have interesting personalities. There’s always some herding of cats aspect, always some dealing with difficult or idiosyncratic people…
DAVE: Usually, yes. Clashes of personality, always. That has to be managed as well. Back in the day, Shock Treatment was ‘a band’, now it’s very much my band…
INTERVIEWER: I imagine Barry McIlheney’s a big personality. Who was the leader of the original Shock Treatment, you or Baz?
DAVE: Barry, very much so.
INTERVIEWER: You were happy being the lieutenant?
DAVE: I took great delight both in Shock Treatment and in Peacefrog in being able to hide behind the big personality [Phil Rossi in Peacefrog] and just step out into the limelight when things were going well! But now, I’ve had to become comfortable with being uncomfortable – being out in front.
SCOTT: I think we’ve all had to do that.
DAVE: Yes. Back then, if I gig was going badly, you’d go back and hide in the shadows. [Ed: Not so easy for members of the Shadows]
INTERVIEWER: All of you are very easy-going people. You’re not a natural dictator, Dave.
DAVE: Absolutely. And that can be problematic.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had to get rid of somebody for musical or personality differences?
DAVE: It has happened, in both the original Shock Treatment and Peacefrog; it hasn’t happened in any of the bands I’m in at the minute. There are differences, of course. Perhaps I wish I was a bit more ruthless.
INTERVIEWER: Scott, have you ever had to ‘let someone go’ because of musical or personality differences? Or in the jazz world, do you simply not call them again?
SCOTT: You simply don’t call them! The reason I have a different bass player on my new record, compared to the first, is because the new player, I ended up doing a bunch of gigs with him and I saw him quite regularly. And in jazz, just because you’re on the first record doesn’t mean you’ll be on the second. In fact, I did a double-bill gig with the first player recently and the question wasn’t even asked. So, that doesn’t really exist in jazz. As you’ve said, it’s a lot more fluid.
INTERVIEWER: Adele: Wookalily is of course famous for having an extraordinary number of ex-members…
ADELE: (laughs) It’s not all my fault!
INTERVIEWER: How many?
ADELE: Well, if you count people standing in for one night, about 30…
[At this point, there is off-the-record discussion about various people by all three interviewees]
ADELE: I think there’s a balance between being a dictator and being a leader. Some circumstances call for being a dictator…
INTERVIEWER: Your natural personality is quite mouse-like…
ADELE: Yeah, I’m a wee bit soft at times, and I let people kind of take over…
DAVE: You learn as you go along…
ADELE: Yeah, you do – but I like band members to take ownership of their place in the band and be enthusiastic about the band and want to help and do things. And sometimes that crosses a line… I don’t know how to put this…
INTERVIEWER: Well, you obviously make it work in some way, because Wookalily has been together for…
ADELE: Ten years – last April!
INTERVIEWER: The current line-up has been together for a good while…
ADELE: We all get together really well. There’s no personality clashes, actually – it’s very healthy.
INTERVIEWER: It was just the previous 25 people who were the problem! It just to you a while to get there…
ADELE: Well, a lot of that was just because it’s an all-female band – some of the women left to have babies…
INTERVIEWER: Because it’s an all-female band, dare I say it, can there be a cattiness at times?
ADELE: Yes, there has been in the past – but also from some of the men.
INTERVIEWER: You’ve had a few male members…
ADELE: Yes, some of the male members have been the biggest divas! (laughs all round)
SCOTT: I think that’s the same for everyone – jazzers can be very catty.
INTERVIEWER: I’m going to name a couple of key personalities each of you has worked with and ask what you’ve learned from them. Scott – Linley Hamilton and Van Morrison.
SCOTT: (laughs nervously) Er, what have I learned from them… I’ll start with Van because that’s an easy answer. I did one gig with him and several [recording] sessions. He has spent his entire life absolutely dedicated to music and if he did not work, he’d probably just die tomorrow. He’s one of those guys where music just keeps him going. So, really, it’s that love of music, that non-stop commitment and focus to the music, which has obviously helped his career.
INTERVIEWER: But am I right in thinking that you found the environment within which he works to be not conducive to you making music at your best?
SCOTT: Well, it’s somewhat stressful. Yes, he is the ultimate dictator, but without really the formal musical training, or at least the personality skills, to be able to put that across in an easy manner. So, what have I learned from Linley Hamilton? I’ve learned a lot. I’ve known Linley for 20 years, and Linley has given me numerous breaks – he plays my music on the radio; as we speak, he’s my PhD supervisor. Really, what I’ve learned from him is that there *is* an audience and you should entertain them. Again, it’s probably similar to Van – it’s that constant, laser-sharp focus on music. And the other thing I learned from Linley is to say yes to as many opportunities as possible because you never know what’s going to happen as a result of it.
INTERVIEWER: And Dave…
DAVE: (scrolling through his phone) I was just trying to find the lyrics to ‘Blueberry Hill’ – there’s this Van anecdote from Barry [McIlheney]. He had this opportunity to interview Van fairly recently…
INTERVIEWER: On Blueberry Hill?
DAVE: No, in an Indian restaurant, which was basically taken over for this interview. Barry arrives and Van’s sitting there, tucking into a massive korma – nothing for Barry, of course. The final question in that interview, which was put to various different people, was ‘What’s the greatest line in a song that was ever written?’ And Van’s going, ‘Hmmm, greatest line ever written…?’ (scratching chin, impersonating Van) ‘What’s anybody else said?’ And Barry says, ‘Well, Leonard Cohen said, “I lost my heart on Blueberry Hill” (or whatever it is)’. ‘Ah, Lenny’s takin’ the piss,’ says Van, and walks out. (laughs all round) Earlier, Barry had said to Van, ‘I’ve just bought a piano, Van. Do you think I could ever write a song?’ ‘No.’ (more laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: By an astounding coincidence, Dave, your two chosen names are Barry McIlheney and Petesy Burns.
DAVE: Basically, Barry taught me that it’s okay to stand up and be heard – don’t be frightened: get up, sing your song, be heard, anybody can do it. And Petesy – Petesy’s a legend. When called upon, Petesy’s your man – a great musician, great fellow, great outlook on life…
INTERVIEWER: He’s got particularly great energy, hasn’t he?
DAVE: Huge energy – and he brings that to anything he’s involved in, absolutely.
INTERVIEWER: Excellent. And Adele – Midge Ure and Sarah McQuaid?
ADELE: Midge Ure? I don’t really know Midge Ure well enough…
INTERVIEWER: Yet, in the process of working on the BBC4 show [‘The UK’s Best Part-Time Band’] did you pick up any useful tips from the fellow about being in the music world?
ADELE: Just to give it your all when you’re onstage. And Sarah McQuaid [Adele was an Irish booking agent for Sarah] – Sarah just works non-stop. So, work ethic from her. I actually sang once with her as well. Myself and Una McCann, who was Wookalily’s lead singer at the time, sang with her…
INTERVIEWER: And of course, Una’s now with Petesy Burns’ [classic soul band] Funk Tank…
ADELE: That’s right.
INTERVIEWER: Next question – do you fully embrace the 21st Century DIY ethic in music-making or are you still waiting for the Chairman of EMI to offer you a fat cheque?
SCOTT: Well, with jazz, let’s call it a second-tier music in terms of popularity – so there’s always been a bit of a DIY attitude. I’m entirely okay with doing up gig posters, trying to put the word out and stuff like that. I can reach out to people and they can reach out to me, rather than being on this sort of elevated platform where you don’t hear from the artist and the artist doesn’t want to hear from you. In terms of the technological aspects of it, great, I’m all for it. It certainly makes it easier for me to get my music out there…
INTERVIEWER: Interestingly, you make CDs yet you personally don’t have a CD player…
SCOTT: This is correct… er, yeah.
INTERVIEWER: Where do you stand on hypocrisy? (laughs all round)
SCOTT: There’s a place up the road called Stormont (more laughs all round)
DAVE: (indicating CH) Don’t get him started!
INTERVIEWER: Ever since I’ve been around the local music world, since the early 90s, it’s been a tortoise and hare thing between jazz players and, broadly speaking, pop/rock players – jazzers just get on and do their thing and don’t expect anyone to come along and sort their lives out; with everyone else, it’s like a hare racing towards an imaginary finishing line at which there’s a man with a big cheque.
SCOTT: It happens to an extent [in jazz] when you reach a certain level. Certainly, among the Irish jazz musicians, there are no real jazz record labels, there’s no established jazz industry in Ireland, so we’ve had to make do. In England, it’s slightly different. Yes, there are labels and you can start to work your way up through labels. There are certainly aspects of the music [process] that I would not do myself – I’m not going to mix my record, I’m not going to master it, because there are people who are much better at that than I ever will be, and I’m happy to pay them to give me a really good product. At the same time, I don’t ever expect my music to be on a big label – and that doesn’t really bother me.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting. I suppose in the jazz world there has only ever been a handful of labels that people would have wanted to be on – ECM, Blue Note, Columbia…
SCOTT: Yes, ECM, Blue Note, and in the 40s, 50s and 60s there were loads of great jazz labels and even now there are well-established ‘jazz labels’ – but you’re not going to make any money from there. It’s very much a prestige thing and you use that prestige as a way to get gigs.
INTERVIEWER: Yes, if you were able to ring people up and say ‘I’m ECM recording artist Scott Flanigan’ that would make a difference…
SCOTT: That would open a lot of doors, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Dave – do you embrace the 21st Century DIY ethic or are you waiting for that man from EMI?
DAVE: Waiting for Godot… I think the nature of punk was that you were always going to do it yourself, anyway…
INTERVIEWER: Or get Terri to do it…
DAVE: Or get Terri to do it! Terri was ‘The Man’, wasn’t he?
INTERVIEWER: You were on Good Vibes at one point, weren’t you?
DAVE: Yes, we were on Good Vibes. We didn’t actually know the record was out till we went into his shop and it was on the shelf [Shock Treatment’s ‘Belfast Telegraph’ appeared on the Good Vibrations V/A EP ‘Room to Move’ in 1980]. The story behind that is that we’d recorded the single for Terri, it lay around and nothing happened, then he was over in London, Energy Records were looking to bring out a record by David Soul but were unable to do so for some reason because they hadn’t previously released anything. Terri said, ‘Oh, I’ve a few things in my bag – here’s a thing by Shock Treatment, and something by Big Self. Throw another couple of songs on there and an EP was released within a week, and that’s how that came out. And thus, they were able to bring out ‘Silver Dream Lady’ by David Soul, or whatever it was. No idea. But that’s the story told by Terri… so it must be true!
SCOTT: So David Soul owes his success to Shock Treatment?
DAVE: Shock Treatment owe their success to Starsky & Hutch, I think – that’s the other way of looking at it. But there was always that do-it-yourself thing – we did our own posters, promoted our own shows… The Peacefrog thing, that was totally different. It was all ‘Oh, China Records are after you… Chrysalis are coming to see you… Nick Beggs out of Kajagoogoo is coming to see you…’ and all these imaginary names were being thrown around. It was brilliant. I was rubbing my hands thinking, ‘Any day now I’m going to be getting out of podiatry!’ And of course, nothing ever happened.
INTERVIEWER: You did support David Bowie at the King’s Hall, though.
DAVE: Yeah, we had our moments.
INTERVIEWER: Why did your big chance never happen?
DAVE: Errr… they signed the Levellers… instead of us! (laughs all round) But what is the music industry now, anyway, you know?
INTERVIEWER: Yes, you’re back to doing it yourself – or at least talking to me about how to do it yourself.
DAVE: Yes, or wanting you to do it!
INTERVIEWER: And Adele – there’s a part of you that’s still waiting for that man with the cheque, isn’t there?
ADELE: Yes, definitely – it’s the dream, to be signed to a label. But there’s a certain amount of control with the DIY approach. Certainly, the creative and artistic side of DIY, I’m still up for; the admin side is not so appealing. I dream of someone tuning my guitar and handing it to me onstage…
INTERVIEWER: Well, Dave has time on his hands (laughs all round)
ADELE: I’m up for that!
INTERVIEWER: Next question: what advice do you have for the other two? (shocked laughs all round)
SCOTT: I don’t know what I can offer you guys!
DAVE: Feel free to join any of my collaborations…
SCOTT: There’s one thing – the thing that is unique to jazz is…
INTERVIEWER: …that you never really find the tune (laughs all round)
SCOTT: With jazz, you know, you start the tune, you do all the improvising, but nobody really knows where it’s going to go. And that can be absolutely terrifying for a lot of non-jazz players…
DAVE & ADELE: Yes! (in harmony)
SCOTT: … but jazz players absolutely thrive on that. There’s nothing worse than knowing exactly what’s going to happen for the rest of the tune. So I would say, absolutely, embrace some improvisation, take a few risks, have a go, see what happens, and if it doesn’t come off, it’s not the end of the world.
ADELE: I don’t know how you do it…
INTERVIEWER: Dave – what advice do you have for Adele and Scott?
DAVE: That’s a good question…
SCOTT: ‘Get a real job’? (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: You’ve been in bands for 40-odd years – there’s got to be something you’ve picked up that’s worth passing on. Like ‘always carry a towel’ – isn’t that something in a Douglas Adams book?
DAVE: Well, I’d agree with you on that, as would Mrs Treatment no doubt [Ed: Dave and Mrs T are well-known for splashing about in the Atlantic Ocean in all weathers] But I can’t give advice – these guys are proper players…
[vociferous pooh-poohing on this point from both Scott and Adele]
INTERVIEWER: But your personality has clearly been a positive factor in your longevity. To briefly summarise an observation recently, Dave and I were at a book launch in the centre of town. I’ve always gently ribbed Dave about being an ‘allegend’ – an alleged legend – I’ve never been convinced he was a bona fide legend. But not only at the book launch did everyone seem to know Dave, in the street afterwards, all kinds of people were glad-handing him and saying hello – and even Dave had no idea who they were! So there’s obviously something, Dave, about your ‘hail fellow, well met’ personality that has served you well in the music scene. Would you deny that?
DAVE: No, no, that’s a fair point. Embrace everybody. You’re right.
INTERVIEWER: I haven’t heard anyone say a bad word about you…
DAVE: Well, I know for a fact that there are people who think I’m a charlatan and can’t play the guitar…
INTERVIEWER: Yes, but your wife isn’t here… (laughs all round)
DAVE: No, and neither is my partner! But that’s my advice, then: be nice to everybody. You don’t know when they’re going to come in handy!
INTERVIEWER: Adele – you’re always nice to everybody…
ADELE: Do you think so? (laughs all round). But my advice to these two is ‘Come to a Wookalily gig’! (laughs)
INTERVIEWER: You’re expecting them to pay?
ADELE: Of course! (laughs all round) But no, it’s nice to be nice – and you both are [to Dave and Scott], so I don’t need to advise you on that.
INTERVIEWER: Final question: what have been your best and worst gigs thus far?
SCOTT: Errrr…. Can I pass while I have a think about it?
DAVE: There have been many ‘worst gigs’.
INTERVIEWER: There was a famous one by the original Shock Treatment, in Portrush, that someone bootlegged, wasn’t there?
DAVE: Yes – ‘Get off! You’re wick!’ But that was a good gig!
INTERVIEWER: Yet, unfortunately, the audience didn’t seem to think so!
DAVE: Ah, that was just one or two people…
INTERVIEWER: This is a bit like the Labour Party saying ‘We won the argument’…
DAVE: If you listen carefully, there was maybe two dissenting voices among a crowd of maybe… 12!
INTERVIEWER: But at a jazz gig, that equates to two dissenting voices among a crowd of three… (laughs all round)
DAVE: But there’s been many highlights – [with Peacefrog] the Trip to Tipp, Finsbury Park Fleadh was fabulous… Worst gigs? There have been gigs where there have been two or three people, but then those gigs can be really good…
SCOTT: That’s a good jazz crowd.
DAVE: Early days, maybe, when they paid you in drink and you walked off the stage unintentionally after two numbers and split your head open… But you learn from all those experiences.
INTERVIEWER: Scott?
SCOTT: Yes, I’ve thought of a couple. I’ll start with the worst gig. The worst gig happened around 10 years ago. I was playing at a Christmas party in a hotel in Belfast…
INTERVIEWER: You don’t even need to say any more (laughs all round)
SCOTT: I was playing solo piano and I’d been booked to do a drinks reception and a dinner for some office party. I was playing away in the background and this guy came over and said, ‘Play something upbeat!’ ‘Er, okay…’ So I played some ragtimey, Christmassy jazz tunes. ‘No, no, no – I don’t want that! Play something GOOD!’ ‘Well, look, I’m here to play jazz…’ They’d booked the wrong kind of entertainment. ‘I’m here to play jazz, you know, this is what I do…’ ‘Ah, well, you’re not any GOOD’ (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: And you’re thinking, ‘Van, give me a break!’ (more hilarity)
SCOTT: This guy stood within earshot and said to all his mates, ‘This guy’s SHITE’. ‘What school did you go to?’ ‘I went to Inst…’ ‘Well, there you go – typical Inst lad, making it up as he goes along…’
INTERVIEWER: So he finally *got* jazz? (laughs all round)
SCOTT: And he goes on: ‘Total joke… don’t even know what you’re doing… why are you here?’ This was literally the only time I’ve done this but I stood up and said, ‘Thanks very much, I’ll be sending you an invoice for the full amount’, and I left the gig two hours early. It was a bit of a red mist moment. ‘I don’t need to listen to this…’
INTERVIEWER: Neither did he, apparently…
SCOTT: So I walked out of the hotel, round the corner to my car – and someone had smashed the rear windscreen! That was a pretty bad one. But they paid the invoice.
DAVE: I’ve thought of one – late 70s, Lake Glen Hotel, on the Andersonstown Road. Shock Treatment, in their infancy, had decided they needed a manager. So Desi Donnelly was brought in from the crowd at the Harp Bar. First, he announced that we had a gig at [legendary venue] The Pound – ‘Brilliant,’ we thought, and arrived down at The Pound: ‘Never heard of youse, lads’. It turned out Desi had booked the Pound Loney in [very dodgy 70s area] Divis Flats – and we decided not to bother with that. The Lake Glen, Thursday night, up we go… and there’s a poster saying ‘Shock Treatment: Country & Western’.
INTERVIEWER: It’s that scene from ‘The Blues Brothers’!
DAVE: We thought, ‘How do we get out of this?’ First song, no dancers. Tried another one, people starting to edge forward, looking at us. We thought, ‘Let’s try something they’ll know’. We tried ‘Love is the Drug’ by Roxy Music – which we could barely play. We gave it a rattle and after that a big fellow in a bomber jacket tapped us on the shoulder, ‘Alright lads, thanks very much…’ (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: I imagine you got rid of Des fairly quickly after that. Scott – we’ve still to get to your best gig…
SCOTT: Well, there are two. The first one was at the Derry Jazz Festival. A few months before, I’d been approached by the BBC to find out if I’d like one of my compositions to be orchestrated for the Ulster Orchestra to feature a jazz trio led by me. I said, ‘Let me think about that for a minute… yes!’ So I sent off the track, even sent off some bits for the orchestration, didn’t think about it any more and then a few months later, there I am at the Guildhall in Derry with a massive eight-foot Steinway in front of me, with the Ulster Orchestra, and they’re playing one of my tunes to a packed crowd and on Radio Ulster as well. As a kid, I’d grown up dreaming of playing classical music on piano in front of orchestras and, with that, it was ‘I’m here… not how I expected to be here, but here I am’. It was just such an incredible experience.
INTERVIEWER: Have you made that recording available online?
SCOTT: It’s available on my phone, and there it will live! The second one happened in 2019 as part of this English tour [with O’Higgins & Luft], playing the music of Monk and Coltrane, two heavy hitters in jazz but not known for their wonderful singalong melodies.
INTERVIEWER: Neither would have gone down well at that office party…
SCOTT: Not really. They might have gone down in the lift, never to be seen again! But we were playing at this bar in Deptford, South-east London, a studenty bar, playing these weird tunes, everyone’s on a high having played six or seven nights in a row, we really know the music – and we couldn’t put a foot wrong. As soon as we said, ‘We’re going to play a tune by Thelonious Monk’ the crowd went absolutely nuts. Every tune, everybody raised their game, really played great. It was great to be surrounded by musicians at a really high level, playing music that I love to people who *really* wanted to hear it…
INTERVIEWER: And there was cash in it!
SCOTT: Well, there was a *little* bit of cash in it! That gig was the worst of the tour for CD sales – cos it was students, and all they wanted was to follow us on Instagram!
INTERVIEWER: And Adele, your best and worst?
ADELE: Well, the best was the Limelight [in Belfast] – and you were there – for BBC4. We had a great crowd, loads of people we knew, and people were really up for it, cheering us on – it was brilliant. The worst was last year, doing a gig to promote a festival, for Downtown Radio – we thought, ‘Great, we’ll get on the radio’. So we went along to a sports shop in Newtownabbey…
DAVE: I think I did a gig there!
ADELE: …Downtown were there but we weren’t on the radio, it was just a roadshow. There were loads of kids there and they were all interested in the act that was on before us, which was a Jack Russell dog that did tricks – but it didn’t really do tricks. It wasn’t really doing anything! As soon as the dog left, the kids dispersed and we were basically playing to no-one, just random shoppers looking for sports clothes. And it was really early in the morning too, and Lyndsay was really grumpy.
SCOTT: I did two gigs once in Marks & Spencer… (laughs all round)
INTERVIEWER: Until they called security?
SCOTT: Let me tell you, it wasn’t a fun gig: ‘We need you there from 8am and we need you to play till 4pm’ – for the opening of a new Marks & Spencer.
ADELE: Ridiculous!
SCOTT: I mean, the money was pretty good for a day’s work, but at some point, you do question your own existence…
ADELE: We did a gig in Warrenpoint once and it was packed. I don’t really like bars and loud noise…
INTERVIEWER: And you’re in the music game?!
ADELE: They were all drunk and there were people shouting out that we were sexist, cos we were all girls – but in fact we had Michael E. Thomas on guitar at the time.
INTERVIEWER: But he was wearing a dress and make-up – that was your pr
Just noticed the last few lines were mysteriously cut off. Here they are:
ADELE: They were all drunk and there were people shouting out that we were sexist, cos we were all girls – but in fact we had Michael E. Thomas on guitar at the time.
INTERVIEWER: But he was wearing a dress and make-up – that was your problem… (laughs)
INTERVIEWER: Final question: will it be legendary?
SCOTT: Absolutely.
DAVE: Hundred per cent.
ADELE: No. (uproarious laughter from all concerned)
Shock Treatment’s 1980 classic ‘Belfast Telegraph’:
Wookalily’s first-album classic ‘Black Magic Doll’:
The Scott Flanigan Trio live in action:
Dave McLarnon’s Sunset, live and progressive!
I saw Scott Flanigan play in November with O’Higgins & Luft, at one of the Sunday evening sessions for Chandos Arms Jazz in Colindale. Bought their CD, which figured in my best albums of 2019 list.
I was interested that with his keyboard setup, Scott had a set of bass pedals (it was just those three on tenor sax, guitar and organ with the excellent house band drummer, Rick Finlay) but was surprised to see that he barely seemed to use the pedals, creating the basslines mostly with his left hand.
An excellent gig, one of the year’s best.
Splendid!
Forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the interview.
Thank you 🙂
As you say, that was fun. The interviewer, whoever that was, was very witty.
I don’t know. No-one posts a Feature for months, then two come along at once.
Great work, Colin.
Thank you Tigs 🙂
A wonderful read Colin – the warmth and love of music shines through. The situational stuff reminds me fondly of the few highs and multiple lows of the gigging life. Well done to you all and best of luck in each of your musical endeavours.
Thank you, Oh Merciless and Fearsome One!
Here’s Scott Flanigan last year, on Hammond, in one of the occasional Tommy Halferty’s Lifetime performances. The epitome of a classic jazz gig – sensational playing and about six punters… 😀
Honestly, you’d have thought at their stage in life they’d have learnt 4/4 timing.
😀 Very good! Here they are in a dark cellar in Belfast playing McLaughlin’s ‘Extrapolation’ from 1969, in which they come no nearer to finding that Bo Diddly beat…
As many as six!
Goes to prove that jazz really is on the up!
That was jolly good.
I really enjoyed that , but missed a picture of you and your beard.
I don’t have a beard!!!!!!!!!!! 😀 As proved by the pics of me & Scott at 1:40 here, as Scott’s sensational piano solo begins. WARNING: May contain 4/4…
Great interview, very interesting. If the music magazines did some interviews like this, it wouldn’t feel like such a waste of money buying them every month…!
You’re too kind! 🙂
Should anyone wish to hear / buy the ‘new direction’ new Wookalily album, it can be done here – free streaming three times through:
https://wookalily.bandcamp.com/