Notting Hill Diary

The impossibly good looking Clint Dyer (Michael X)

Following my article on the play Michael X, to be staged at the Tabernacle Centre from November 6 onwards, the play’s organisers have very generously offered a free pair of tickets to the show as well as a copy of the book to give to a reader of this site.

To claim the tickets and book, all you need to do is leave a comment below, saying why you’d like to see the play, or why Michael X is important to the history of the area, or indeed anything Michael X related. The poster of the first meaningful comment will be the lucky winner.

I’m looking forward to seeing it myself and will definitely be writing about it afterwards.

Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened. I popped into Nektar on Latimer Road while waiting to rehearse across the road at Grove Studios and the owner, Dimitri, was giving away beer!. Well, Guinness and Fosters at least. Something to do with selling Murphy’s instead from the next day.

Anyone who knows Dimitri knows that this is an opportunity not to be missed, so even though I didn’t want one, I had a pint of Guinness. The last time he gave anything away in these quantities was before he opened and had a part for the builders.

From L to R, Vanessa Walters, Dawn Walton and Clint Dyer, respectively the writer, director and actor playing Michael

“Who?” asked my wife
I was quite shocked, but then she is a) younger than me and b) not from these parts, so I suppose it’s excusable.

A new play, “Michael X”, is being stage over a period of 6, non non-contiguous, evenings at the legendary Tabernacle Centred (which deserves an article in its own right) on Powis Square, London W11 2AY.

Mr X, real name Michael de Freitas, was, to say the least, a complex character. On the one hand he was a leading black power activist of the late 50s and 60s, on the other, he teamed up with notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman to act as a rent collector. That’s to say nothing of his associations with such luminaries as John Lennon, Yehudi Menuhin’s sister and, of course, Malcolm X (I’ve seen one theory that Malcolm “accidentally” gave Michael his new surname in a slip of the tongue, but I haven’t seen that confirmed anywhere else).

Michael met his grizzly end when he was hanged for murder back in his native Trinidad.

The play, written by Vanessa Walters as a result of a year-long project called Between the Lines in association with The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, will be performed on November 6, 10, 13, 17, 24 and 27 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. Tickets are £5 (plus 50p booking fee if online). To book in advance please call the box office on 0871 2715151 or online at www.carnivalvillage.org.uk. Booking information 020 7361 3204 or email arts@rbkc.gov.uk.

Wifey just called to me from the street as if there was major catastrophe in progress. I stepped outside into something approaching a blizzard.

Only 3 hours ago I was in our local shop (”corner shop” in British parlance, despite being nowhere near any corner) and Yasmin was bemoaning the fact that our Indian summer was over and that she felt like going home to Kerala for the winter months. I asked if Keralans ever look forward to an Indian summer, but I don’t think she understood. On reflection it was a bit of a dumb question that would have benefited from the brain filter being in the “on” position.

The snow’s stopped now, but it was exciting, because in London we’re lucky if we see 10 minutes of sleet even in the middle of winter.

Footnote: According to the TV news this morning, it’s the first time we’ve had snow in London since 1934.

I do like a good open mic night and there are several regular evenings around the area which I’ll try to list at some point. Why do I like them? Well around here they often feature some very good acts, probably because the area is a magnet for musos, but even if they’re not so good it’s one of those things that gives a vibe to a community.

If you like your open mic nights ethical (not quite sure what an “unethical” one is like), head down to Progresso, 156 Portobello Road this evening. Progresso is the Fair Trade coffee shop where they’ve been knitting their own humanist constitution for years (or something) and this evening Tygahoney Music (no, me neither) present “uplifting positive music with free fairtrade goodie bag giveaways and raffle prizes”.

Actually it sound bloody good and I wish I wasn’t in the studio so I could go along. If anyone feels like reviewing it for me, please do! To quote again from prlog.org, “Hosted by Danelle Harvey, live music will be provided by Yellowgroove, Poet Steve Rock, the Ethical Diva Miss Harvey herself and open mic acts to be confirmed at the free event”.

Police has released a series of shaky and poorly focused CCTV images of 14 twats they want to interview regarding the bottle throwing finale to this year’s Carnival. You can see them here on the BBC site.

I’m pretty confident that I’m not one of the people in the pictures, but I’d still love to have some footage of me and the rest of Rotten Hill Gang running through the hail of bottles dress in our full stage regalia!

A lovely hat

I now love my wife more than ever before.

The price of unjustifiable baboonery
It was a source of great stress to me yesterday that I faced the prospect of having to join the rest of the guys at the 100 Club having to beg a guitar from another band, but wifey spent much time and energy on pursuing the best deal re someone to break into our car to rescue my own (strictly speaking her own, or rather her ex boyfriend’s¹) guitar, the effects unit and, most importantly, my hat. Plus we got a spare car key cut into the bargain. I’m not privy to its whereabouts, which, following my behaviour this week, is completely understandable. I am, however, £110 poorer.

There’s no such thing as a free drink
Well certaiinly not at the 100 Club at any rate, but the gig went great and it was good to be able to play on a stage where we weren’t all stumbling on each other’s feet. If you’ve never been there, for a club of its size, the 100 Club is really well laid out with plenty of room to move around both on and off stage.

I remember this place when you were knee high to a grasshopper
Thanks for mentioning it, but I was probably about 15 at the time. Mick noted that he hadn’t been there since - er - the last time he played there and rather charmingly there’s a photo on the wall just near the dressing room of that occasion. It was probably taking in year zero (AKA 1977). A couple of pictures to the right and down one is one of the Pistols from the same era (possibly the same gig for all I know) which shows some of the punters. The lovely thing about it is that it was obviously so early on in punk days (I know I know, late if you knew what was what) that the crowd plainly didn’t have a clue what was going on and resembled a Top of the Pops audience from around the same time; guys with devil-may-care wind-blown coiffeurs and flairs that suggested a post modern take on the Osmonds.

Next gig, it’s back to the venue we haunt for Halloween
So anyway, the next one is next Friday, October 31, at our spiritual home of Inn on the Green. It’s another of Mick P’s legendary nights and among 6 or 7 other bands, the fantastic Langley Sisters will be playing. You really owe it to yourselves to catch them. Or just come along to see us. Either way, if you want guest listing, just drop us a comment right here.

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¹The ex boyfriend in question is probably a really lovely guy. After all he must be for my wife to have been interested in him. He was (is?) in a band called Sister Machine Gun. I have no idea what they’re like, but I remember seeing their graffiti on the wall of some dressing room when we (BAD) were on tour in America at some time.

Well against the odds Rotten Hill Hang had a great gig last night at the good ship.

What were the odds? Well mainly that I packed everything into the car (that’s Arran’s drums, which I still had from Friday’s gig and my guitar, effects pedal (no great loss) and, worst of all, HAT!), shut the boot, and promptly realised that I’d locked my car key inside, where it remains.

We were due on stage at 9pm, so I called the AA, who said that yes, they could come out within the hour (I specifically checked because it was already 7:20), but that I’d have to upgrade to home call out, plus pay a call out charge of £85. I did so, but at 8:20 I decide to call to check where they were. It seemed that they could now not make it till around 9:30pm, so instead I called my friendly local rehearsal studio and borrowed, or rather hired, a guitar.

As “luck” would have it, in the light of the current credit crunch wifey and I had spent the day reviewing our finances and found that a) if we cut out some of the bizarre forgotten direct debits we could save the equivalent of a reasonable holiday every year (to save repeating myself I wrote about it on my whimsical side project how to survive the credit crunch) and b) we really can’t afford such baboonery as locking keys in the car.

Worse still, at some point during the evening the guitar that I’d borrowed, a rather spiffing Telecaster reissue that was almost exactly the same as the one Mick was playing, developed a large chip in the veneer on the back that I’m going to have to pay for one way or another.

Bottom line, that gig, in front of about 20, admittedly very enthusiastic, people, will cost me a small fortune :-S

I like to think there’s a lesson to be learned, but the worst thing is, I can’t for the life of me think what it is! Suggestions are invited.

P.S. The key is still locked inside the car, but it will be sprung tomorrow one way or another, because we have our gig at the 100 Club tomorrow evening so I need my own guitar and, more importantly, my hat!

Rotten Hill Gang

And the gigs just keep on coming!
Rotten Hill Gang play the Good Ship in Kilburn on Tuesday October 21 and at the 100 Club on Thursday October 23.

The lineup for both of those gigs will be (in no particular order):
Reds: Rap
Krysten Cummins: Vocals
Gary Stonadge: Bass+Vox
André Shapps: Guitar+Vox
Mick Jones: Guitar+Vox
Arran Ness: Drums

The Good Ship
289 Kilburn High Road, London, London NW6 7JR

100 Club
100 Oxford Street, London W1

Claudia Jones stamp

Civil rights activist Claudia Jones has been honoured by appearing on British postage stamps as part of the “Women of Distinction” series.

Widely regarded as the Mother of Carnival, Claudia came to the UK from her birth place of Trinidad via the US (from which she was expelled during the McCarthy era), she worked tirelessly for the black community in London and created the first ever black newspaper in the UK, The West Indian Gazette.

Recently two plaques were unveiled in her honour on Portobello Road and Powis Square and I wrote a fuller piece on her on my page on the history of Carnival.