Stone Pony - Tracks, North Elmham, 24 Oct 2009

My blog at Woho seems like a good place to note down my own musical activity, if only as a way of reminding myself what I've done recently. When you get to my age, people, you have to write things down or else you'll forget them. Don't blame it on the sunshine. Don't blame it on the moonlight. Don't blame it on the good times. Blame it on the middle-aged cognitive dysfunction.

Every so often I sit in with Stone Pony, the Norfolk rock and blues band put together by the unbelievably hard-working guitarist Andy Graham. A busy life and a couple of gig cancellations meant I hadn't played with the band for months, so I was looking forward to this one.

The venue - Tracks - is a small venue in a converted barn separate from (but part of) the Railway in North Elmham. I arrived - as usual - much earlier than everyone else, but this was fortunate, for a couple of reasons.

First, the gear. I play a Hammond XK1 organ. This is a single-manual clonewheel, to which you can lash another keyboard by MIDI to act as a lower manual, thus making a very effective console organ. I use my Korg TR61 for the purpose. I play this rig through a Carlsbro 90W keyboard combo. Well, when I set up, I found that my MIDI lead had broken. Disaster! Or Was It? Fear not, friends, for the ever-resourceful Gee decided to use the Hammond as a single keyboard, and dialed up a great electric piano sound on the TR61. A bit of tremolo; a fast, gritty, attack, and a smooth, bell-like finish. As cool as a very cool thing (think Joe Sample in the Crusaders) an an ideal counterblast to the fiery, overdriven Hammond.

Second, I met tonight's drummer, Lisa Gabriel, and we had some time to chat before the van arrived containing Andy, his son Jake - tonight's bassist - and the rest of the gear. Lisa walloped a thumping great Tama 22" kit with an assortment of Paiste cymbals. Jake played a Fender Precision through a big Trace Elliot combo, and Andy played a variety of guitars through a Marshall JCM2000 head and 2x12 cab.

The Stone Pony set varies from night to night, depending on what Andy feels like playing at any moment. The experience or me is like a jam session, with that same excitement and invigorating feeling of danger. Quite often we'd launch into a song without me being told the key ... truly, it's the only way to be.

So, what did we play? A little slow blues - Need Your Love So Bad - near the beginning. That was almost the only slow thing we played all night, apart from a Steve Earle song and Girl from the North Country, which I'd once heard on a Walter Trout album, but which started life with Bob Dylan, as Andy told me later.

Apart from that, we turned it up, played fast and loud, and people started to drift in from the pub next door. We played some rock'n'roll. We played Gimme Some Lovin' and another famous Steve Winwood song whose name I can never remember (oh yes, it was Keep On Running) - excuses to turn up the Hammond. We played a soulful Led Zeppelin song (not Stairway) and bashed away at Born To Be Wild.

But the best bits, for me, were when Andy chose a nugget of a song and used it for an extended jazz-funk-rock jam. It really didn't matter which song we started from - it could have been Get Back, Come Together or Rose Royce's Car Wash. Andy would throw quotes from Hendrix or Clapton into the mix, and gave me plenty of free rein for trying out jazz voicings on the electric piano.

It was an enjoyable gig, on the whole, in a venue that was intimate without being cramped, and with an intimate audience of about a dozen.