Last night, in a small basement room under a bar in Stoke Newington (or The Waiting Room, to use its proper name), I saw three bands.
While that's technically true, the second and third had the same people. They swapped positions a little (lead vocal became backing vocal and vice versa) and sang a different style of song. Oh, and they had the same bass player as the first band.
I haven't seen anything like that since The Folksmen supported Spinal Tap at Wembley Arena. (The similarity begins and ends with the versatility. I'm not comparing performance, musicianship, song-writing. Obviously.)
I don't intend to review the performances - other than to say that I thought they were utterly beguiling and excellent. I'd love people to buy Devon Sproule's records because I think they'd enjoy them and it would encourage her to record more and tour more often.
And, for the first time in my life, I was on the guest list. It would have been well worth paying but there's that extra frisson of excitement (bear with me) at just dropping your name and walking in. (It was a perk for backing her Kickstarter project, which also led to a highly infectious new album.)
I am, of course, being highly unfair to Bernice and Batsch - the other two bands last night - by not naming them until the sixth paragraph. But this isn't a review piece.
It occurred to me that, every night, in basement rooms up and down the country (and around the world), excellent music is being played that would appeal to vast numbers of people if only they knew it was there.
And that, after all the creation that goes into writing the songs, rehearsing them till they click and flow and glide, recording them and mixing them - and after the administrative nightmare that must be the touring process - there's no way of making sure that everyone who would love to hear the songs will ever hear them.
This is no one's fault. Of course. I'm not suggesting that if [insert name of band I don't like] ceased to exist then all their marketing budget could be better spent on [insert name of band I do like]. My taste is no better than anyone else's. Well, it's better for predicting what I'm going to enjoy - but that's about it.
I'll leave you to draw the parallel to the world of publishing.
***
It also reminded me of the band I used to play in, all those years ago. No, we never recorded. No, we never toured. It was a pre-mid-life-crisis band playing to friends and family in tiny rooms above, below or beside pubs. And on a boat once - yes, that was surprising for me too.
We had fun (sometimes), made a loud noise (many times) and never stopped the audience from talking very loudly all the way through our set. Eventually it collapsed - many reasons - there were too many who thought they were the lead including, bizarrely, the singer. And our lead guitarist finally emigrated, thereby putting a few thousand miles between himself and the rest of us.
I didn't look at the bands last night and wonder about what could have been. I know what could have been. We could have carried on playing two or three gigs each year to the same group - which would gradually have thinned out as the demands of arranging babysitting, the exhaustion of working (yeah, all that typing, preparing powerpoint presentations and studying Gantt charts can really take it out of you) and having better things to do finally took their toll.
Instead, I looked at the bands last night, loved the music and felt nostalgia (the good sort, the wistful sort, the sort that gives you a warm glow from gut to shoulder blades) slap me about a bit.
No conclusion to this meander - but it's making me smile.
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