Thursday 20th February at The Lab, Earl Street, Northampton, UK I’ll be doing an open mike gig.
‘Drowning’ will be one of the songs an old Miss Redd/zallaz collab, as for other songs there’s a heap of other oldie contenders, all with varying merit and when I say oldies, I’m going back to stuff accumulated from 1977 onwards.
It’s more an experiment to put myself back in a live situation to see if the old creative process reignites, over the last decade there has been flickers musically that fizzled out.
Personally I think my strength is lyrics, and I’d be happiest if someone else was handling vocal duties, anyhow’s who knows it might be a one off swan song final performance…
So Thursday night it was raining cats and dogs, I caught a Number 2 bus and in the pour rain headed to The Lab. Still thinking "Am I crazy?" A coworker had remarked "You won't do it." That was like a redd rag to bull to me. Doubters, skeptics, cynics don't know me. If I say I'm doing something unless there's an unforeseen circumstance I'm there.
A lady on the door of the venue greeted, you had to pay a quid admisssion. I'd been there years ago to see Toronto band Zeus, since then a much nicer new stage had been constructed, really nice. The venue is cozy, no one is far from the stage and a bar on the right, it's functional more than flash, but hey it's a live music venue when so many like the old Soundhaus over the road have closed.
To my relief another co worker Amy and her family arrive, Amy had explained someone else she knew was going to play that night and they'd asked her to attend. There was a date mix up, their gig was the following week, Amy still kindly braved the weather conditions.
A sound man approaches me and talks technical, he then ushers me on to the stage. The next thing the gig is taking place, I just thought it was a soundcheck!
The venue is quiet if there's twenty people in there that's being generous, slighthly more than one man and his dog, and I've done those gigs too.
I start with 'Drowning' (Jana Foley co-write from 2009). I stop. Nerves, I'd got lost. So 'Drowning' Take 2! Around 20 seconds in the guys handling the sound switches the vocal mike on, this is a learning curve, next gig do a damn long intro so levels are set. Take 2 goes to plan, end of song. Silence. "Jeez was I that bad?" Then applause. Phew mild relief. My voice was shaky after a decade gap between gigs. I think as no one knew 'Drowning' too, how would they knew it ended?
Next 'Walk Away' mainly due to deezee on iBandstand this week reminding me of it's longevity. 'Walk Away' was a cakewalk and was well received to stronger crowd reaction. So now it was time for one last song, these open mike gigs you normally only get 3 songs then it the next participant.
'Amanda' is the closing choice (like Drowning never played live) 'Amanda' is a silly song and one I rehearsed with a gal from Porto Portugal, Sofia Truta years ago with her on ukulele! 'Amanda' is not a deep song it's really a comedy song but the few assembled folk react positively to the tale of a shop girl that moved to Vancouver.
So that was it. 3 songs short and sweet and afterwards one question keeps coming my way from folk. "Why'd you leave it so long Laz?"
The truth is, I thought me and music was past tense. I felt I'd exhausted all my creative energy, used all my ideas had nothing new to say.
Now in February 2025 I'm finding flashes of ideas, it's is the same old Laz aka zallaz, but I feel like I can simply have fun, keeping it stripped and simple. Does anyone remember fun? My god we need fun in our lives currently.
