Simon Little

Sorry it’s been such a long time since my last post. I’ve just spent the last fortnight touring Ireland with Duke Special and made the (potentially hazardous) last minute decision to go sans laptop. Hence my absence online over the last two weeks, I do hope you’ll excuse me.

But fear not dear readers, I have been diligently ‘blogging’ the old-fashioned way with pen and paper throughout the tour so that I can bombard you with a veritable deluge of posts on my return.

I wrote this post on the 24th November. Lets pretend for now it still is…

I feel a little explanation is in order regarding the title of this post. I am now officially known as The Undertaker in the Duke’s band. This is mainly due to the rather splendid tailcoat I picked up in Camden just before we set off. It was Peter’s idea. He asked me a while ago if I had any character ideas for the band (all the members of the band assume a Duke Special-esque identity when on tour) and the tailcoat prompted him to christen me The Undertaker. Nice.

And, so you know, here’s who else we had in the band on the tour:

Duke Special- Piano and vocals

Temperance Society Chip Bailey- Percussion and kitchen utensils

Matador Ben Castle- Saxes and Clarinet

Paul Pilot- Guitar

Detective Phil Wilkinson- Drums

The Invisible Birdman Mark Edwards- Keyboards

And myself on bass. It’s a really fantastic lineup and I think the largest band Peter has toured with thus far (excluding the orchestral shows, obviously)

Having spent a couple of days rehearsing the previous month to get our ears around the new material, this run officially started with three more days rehearsing in Putney. Now, I say three days rehearsing, but in reality the majority of the first day was spent unloading al the gear and setting it up for the first time, and virtually the entire last day was spent packing it down and trying to get it loaded for the tour. I have never come across another band with as much (mainly loose!) gear as the Duke’s. They make The Flaming Lips look positively minimalist with their vast plies of equipment and various stage paraphernalia. In fact we got a nasty surprise when we finally met up with the tourbus and trailer with our veritable mountain of gear, only to discover that we’d also be carrying about the same amount again in lighting equipment. And the trailer wasn’t very big. Oops…

O yeah, and we have no roadies. Should have mentioned that earlier really…

I am writing to you today from the dressing room of the An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny. We have four shows under our belt so far, with nine more to go.

Our tour started  in Waterford with two nights at Electric Avenue. This is a great little venue right in the middle of the town. I think Peter’s played there a number of times before. I’m guessing it holds somewhere between 200-250 people. The stage certainly wasn’t intended for a band the size of ours. In fact Mark and I wound up on our own little podium off to one side. The was no cat-swinging action to be had I can tell you.

I have come to the conclusion that Waterford is essentially not very ergonomic for a rock and roll band. Electric Avenue is at the top of a long hill which neither the bus or trailer could negotiate. The bus ended up parked in the docks with no water or power ( a good ten minute walk down the hill), where we also had a day room at a local hotel. Let me tell you; woe betide anyone who leaves some essential item for the gig on the bus. I lost count of the number of times I had to schlep up and down that bloody hill. Our dressing room was also miles away from the stage on the other side of the venue. More on that later…

The first night was amazing and the crowd were fantastic. Especially considering the sheer volume of new material we had in the set. They really got into it. In fact it seemed that the majority of them were already familiar with a lot of the new songs already. I discovered that Sweet Sweet Kisses has been getting a lot of airplay over there, which is great news. 

The second night was an extra date added into the schedule after the first night sold out. The crowd were a little noisy but we still had a good show. We did get another nasty shock when we discovered that our dressing room would eventually (ie; by the time we came off stage) become the arse end of a hideous club night. I’ve never seen anything like it. As we sauntered back after the show we were greeted by a crowd of drunken men (there were about three girls in the whole place) gyrating and cavorting erratically to blaring house music. My own personal Hell. Why anybody would voluntarily go out dancing in such a place is entirely beyond me.

On the 22nd we went on to the Dinn Ri in Carlow. This is a fairly new venue, about twice the size of Electric Avenue. Carlow is an incredibly small town. In fact I can honestly say that I’d ‘done’ the Carlow town centre in about fifteen minutes. I’ve discovered that the Bagel Factory is a good default destination for coffee action whilst in Ireland. Luckily, there was one opposite the bus. Nice touch.

The show went really well. It was good to finally all the on the same stage. Although we did have to erect a little extension to the side for Chip and his enormous percussion rack.

Yesterday we were at the An Tain Theatre in Dundalk. The town looked really lovely but everything was shut as it was a Sunday. Bugger.

Pete’s wife arrived from Belfast with an assortment of costume goodies for us to wear on stage, including a great vintage top hat for me and a floor-length leather mac and trilby for Mark’s Invisible Man getup. By the time Mark was ready for the show we couldn’t even look in his general direction without cracking up. I think he won the award for best outfit…

The An Tain is a proper seated theatre venue with a massive stage. We finally got to use some of the lighting gear we’d been carting around and the show looked fantastic thanks to our LD Dom. It made such a difference to the show, with proper lighting. This was easily the best show thus far.

We’ve had some bloody awful loadouts so far on the tour. Mainly because we end up trying to do it right in the middle of chucking out time at all the local bars and clubs. I have found myself simultaneously assuming the roles of roadie, bouncer ad bodyguard after some of the shows. Although we didn’t have this problem last night, it wound up being the worst loadout to date due to the pouring rain and freezing cold. A cunning flight of slippery steps made matters a little more tricky. Nice.

I’m really looking forward to playing the Dublin Olympia tomorrow. It’s one of my favourite venues to play in Ireland. I’ve done it a few times with The Divine Comedy and once with A Girl Called Eddy when we supported The Beautiful South a few years ago. Neil’s coming to see the show too, so it’ll be great to catch up.

I’ll let you know how it all goes….

Duke Special’s fantastic new album I Never Thought This Day Would Come was released in Ireland last month. It’s available over here for download at the iTunes store, or you can buy the CD direct from the Duke Special Store.

On Friday night I performed with one of my all-time favourite artists, the sublime Duke Special at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. I’ve been looking forward to this show for quite some time now. Myself and Tim Weller were drafted in from The Divine Comedy to play with Duke Special’s band and the RTE Concert Orchestra, under the baton of conductor David Brophy.

Tim and I met up with Peter on Wednesday afternoon to have a quick run-through of all the material. I was recording a charity song with Clare in the morning at Air Studios (watch this space) and had to rush across town to make the session. The next rehearsal was to be in Dublin at the RTE building. Our flight was, surprise surprise, so early in the morning from Gatwick that I had to stay up all night again in order not to miss it (I left my house at 3.15 in the morning!).

The rehearsal with the orchestra went pretty well, although the room wasn’t ideal acoustically for our setup. It was a big hall and we were set up facing a big wall so everything the band played at the back of the orchestra bounced back a fraction of a second later than everything else. And we couldn’t hear Peter or his piano.  So we came away having no idea what this was going to sound like, but did manage to ascertain that the various parts worked (Luckily I’d spent all day Tuesday working out parts for myself).

We spent the rest of the day strolling around Dublin. I really do love Dublin and it was great to have the time to take a look around again. It’s not often in a gig/touring situation that you have any spare time to actually see anything of the town you’re in. Having said that, our hotel was up in Rathmines and it was a bit of a schlepp to get right into town, but luckily we had quite a long time. We ended up in Whelan’s twice (!) and got some food on the way into town. Incidentally, we came across a fantastic Chapman Stick player in Temple Bar. No idea who he was but he was great to watch. Hopefully our paths will cross again sometime so we can have a chat.

We soundchecked and ran through the set again on the day. The show was sold out (I think the venue holds about 1200, but I can’t say for certain). 

It can be quite a tricky situation when a band goes out to do a show with what is essentially a pickup orchestra (in other words, one which does not tour with the band and hasn’t necessarily seen or indeed even heard the material before). I’ve done a number of these kinds of shows with The Divine Comedy and to be frank, they were a mixed bag. The whole show really does depend on the attitude and motivation of the orchestra and the conductor (if there is one). TDC have had a few issues in the past with some rather stuffy orchestras and orchestral managers. We were so lucky with the RTE folks and David Brophy. They were so enthusiastic and energetic. It makes such a huge difference when the orchestra really get into the music and they did a great job, both in rehearsal and at the performance.

The show consisted mainly of tunes from the Duke’s debut album Songs From The Deep Forest 

with five brand new songs from his forthcoming album. Let me tell you, the new album is going to be amazing.  It’s due for release in Ireland in October. At the moment, since Universal bought up V2, Duke Special only has a record deal in Ireland. This is a bloody travesty folks. Peter is one of the best singer-songwriters to have emerged in the last decade and deserves much better than this. Still, we’ll all just have to buy the album from Ireland; that’s what I’ll be doing the moment it comes out!

The show was a resounding success and one of the best gigs I’ve done in a while. The new songs were incredibly well received and the audience were fantastic. Really hoping to do more shows with Pete some time soon.

I had to fly back the following day and peg it down to Dorchester for a little function giglet. When the bandleader called me up for the gig during the week, the call went something like this….

“Yeah man, it’s gonna be great. It’s in this swanky manor house, loads of food and free drinks all night. We’ve all got hotel rooms for the night and there’s a big swimming pool so bring your swimming gear. It’s gonna be great fun”.

Hmm…(!)

Well, the wedding was indeed held in a manor house, which was indeed swanky. Sadly, at some point in the 50’s or 60’s, the estate was bought by the police who turned it into a training college and threw up (literally) a selection of hideous yellowy utility buildings (including the aforementioned swimming pool) all around the back of it. Let me tell you, if the planning consent had been applied for by anyone other than the police it never would have been approved. Absolutely putrid and horrifying. And guess where we were staying? Yep. I’ve stayed in swankier Travel Lodges.

As usual in these wedding gig situations, everything was running rather late. About an hour late. We were just about to go on when the father of the bride (a rather portly Scottish gent in a kilt) came up to us and asked for the mic. He wanted to make an announcement…

Apparently Auntie Lil (a lady in her late seventies) had slipped down the stone steps on her way out and had been quite badly hurt having bashed her head. The ambulance was on it’s way and could we please have ten minutes of quiet time? O my god. Needless to say, that killed the mood at the wedding in an instant. And we were about to go on. Couldn’t believe he’d just announced this to the whole party over the mic. Neither it seemed could the bride and groom by the looks on their faces. Neither indeed could Aunty Lil who I discovered earlier had insisted that nobody tell the bride as she didn’t want to spoil her big day.

Well as you can imagine, the gig was a bit of a challenge after that. We did somehow manage to drag the mood back up again and by about halfway through the first set everyone was having a good time once more. 

Anyway, enough of that!

I will be performing with Duke Special again this Friday with the London Gay Symphony Orchestra at The Roundhouse in Camden. Let me know if you’re coming along and I’ll come say hello afterwards. Really looking forward to it.

And just before I go….

I’ve mentioned to several people over the years about the funny signs at Dublin Airport. The ones about unfamiliarity with escalators or lifts. Nobody has believed me thus far, so here is the proof…. (you might have to zoom in a bit!)

How anyone who was unfamiliar with either escalators or lifts would be perfectly happy jumping on a plane is utterly beyond me.