News and views - latest update June 24th

A page for me to indulge myself by writing about stuff that may or may not be of interest to anyone else. GIG REVIEWS - both my own and other peoples'. MEMORIES - ancient and recent. And HUMOUR - hopefully.

June 24th 2010

Had a great gig at Poorboys in Hastings last Sunday with Ian Roberts on drums. He's just amazing. The audience loved it, so we'll be playing there again soon. People like the fact that we don't play like a duo - we both play as if we're on stage with a rock band - as loud as we can get away with! Working with Ian gives me the opportunity to put into practice something I've always believed - that piano and drums can be as powerful a combination as a whole band. The piano in rock music is usually used as an added extra, but I grew up listening to (and trying to play) Beethoven's piano sonatas, which are about as powerful and expressive as you can get. Of course these days I play a digital piano - I'd love to carry a 9 foot concert grand with me, but not with my bad back! Apart from my own songs, most of our material isn't arranged - we just start playing and see where it takes us and people seem to love that kind of spontaneity.

May 20th 2010

The Kittiwakes at Mrs Yarrington's Music Club, Battle, East Sussex.

The first truly warm evening of the year. A great time to return to Crowhurst Park, not to perform this time (see May 6th), but to enjoy a performance by one of the folk scene's up and coming bands.

Ami Tarrant opened with a lovely half-hour set - mostly of her own songs, but also including a gentle version of Ben Harper's Waiting On An Angel.

I suppose the main thing that attracted me here tonight was that The Kittiwakes were performing songs inspired by a part of the world that I love - northern Norway. Their highly acclaimed debut album Lofoten Calling was written by their talented leader Kate Denny. They are a three piece - all playing various instruments and singing. The songs are about various aspects of life in the Lofoten Islands as well as some of the myths that have grown up around the landscape and the sea. It's a harsh life up there in the Arctic, especially for the fishermen who make a living on the treacherous waters that surround the islands and for those who wait anxiously for them. This was reflected in quite a few of Kate's songs including Weaver which is simply a masterpiece - describing the paradoxical situation of a woman weaving the sail that will carry her loved one away and wondering if it will ever bring him back. The title track is an accapella piece in stunning three part harmonies. In fact one of the most impressive aspects of the band are the vocal abilities of all three members. Hurtigruten is a lively instrumental that ends with a vocal passage describing how you can set your watch by the time the coastal express boat departs. Some years ago I was playing in Harstad in a group of islands even further north than the Lofotens. We decided to take the Hurtigruten to Svolvaer, the main town in the Lofotens. We were enjoying the wonderful winter scenery from the deck as the steamer sailed smoothly between the islands, when we were told that we would need to get off at the next stop as the ship was about to encounter a storm which would prevent it getting into the harbour. So we never quite made it to the wonderful Lofoten Islands. Happily Kate Denny did and it inspired her to write some beautiful songs.

Occasionally they moved away from the Lofoten Calling album to perform some of her other songs including Beano a delightful song which brilliantly describes the annual trip to the coast which at one time was the only escape many Londoners had from the daily grind. And when the three Kittiwakes turned their hands to traditional English (and in one case Swedish) fiddle tunes they were just as assured.

There's only one place I would rather have been tonight. A town called Henningsvaer in the Lofoten Islands for the first night of a music festival which is taking place over this weekend. With typical Norwegian humour it's called Codstock - like Woodstock, but with fish.

May 18th 2010

Advice to my fellow musicians: if you play a wrong note, don't panic - just play it again with more conviction (preferably with a look of smug satisfaction on your face). Don't lose your nerve - just keep playing it and eventually the audience will be convinced that you meant it. It will still sound wrong but they'll just think they are too ignorant to understand your genius. Works every time!

May 15th 2010

On Sunday 2^nd May I saw Ian Hunter And The Rant Band at the Barbican Centre in London - supported by Three Bonzos And A Piano.

The Barbican seemed a slightly strange venue for a rock and roll concert. The screens in the foyer advertised concerts by various luminaries of the jazz and classical music world - Winton Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the great Russian conductor Valery Gergiev who looked a little like Arthur Daley - would you buy a used cello from this man?

I wonder what they would have thought of the motley procession that began in the foyer and entered the auditorium to start this concert. Sitting up in the balcony I gradually became aware of what sounded like a drunken Salvation Army band approaching. Roger Ruskin-Spear and his cohorts appeared marching through the stalls blowing trombones and clashing cymbals in peoples' faces. Three Bonzos And A Piano eventually reached the stage to deliver a wonderfully shambolic set of old favourites including Jollity Farm, and Canyons of Your Mind, with it's gloriously inept guitar solo. There were some hilarious moments - Sam Spoons playing the spoons in a strobe light; Roger Ruskin-Spear with his wondrous (and occasionally malfunctioning) robots. Finally a hospital trolley was wheeled onto the stage bearing an apparently lifeless body with a Frankenstein's monster head. Ruskin-Spear applied electric shocks and the 'monster' came to life and started playing the spoons, much to the delight of the audience.

I saw Ian Hunter and the Rant Band two years ago at the Komedia in Brighton, which is a much smaller stand-up venue. The sound was better there, but maybe that was just because of my position high up in an auditorium whose acoustics were designed with non-amplified music in mind. Ian and the band were in great form and delivered powerful versions of some Mott The Hoople classics including Angeline and Sweet Jane. But Ian's most recent album Man Overboard provided some of the best moments. I can't think of another artist of his age who is still completely at the top of his writing form.

There's nothing much more annoying than having to leave a great gig early to catch a train - except maybe arriving at the station with time to spare and realising that you could have stayed to the end! I was moving towards the exit when I looked back and saw Ian sitting at the piano to play Somewhere from West Side Story. I decided I had to stay long enough to hear that - it's not a song you would normally expect Ian Hunter to sing, but it was an inspired choice and it deservedly received the biggest audience reaction of the night up to that point.

So unfortunately I had to miss the encores, which I believe included an appearance by Mick Ralphs. Ah well, Ian is showing no sign of hanging up his shades, so I expect I'll catch the usual Saturday Gigs, All The Way From Memphis and All The Young Dudes finale next time.

May 6th 2010

On Tuesday 4^th May, 2010 I supported Lisa Mills at Crowhurst Park, Nr Battle, East Sussex

What a great night. Lisa Mills is a superb singer/songwriter/guitarist from Mississippi. It was the last show of her three-week tour of the UK and she had just travelled for twelve hours from the north of England, arriving at the gig about forty minutes before she was due to go on. Despite that, this was a high energy performance from start to finish and you can easily imagine her fronting Big Brother And The Holding Company (Janis Joplin's band), which she did for three years.

On this tour though, she was accompanied only by Ian Jennings on double-bass and to be honest, that's all she needs. Working as a duo seems to give her the space to improvise and play around with tempos and arrangements in a way that isn't really possible when more musicians are involved. Her guitar playing often reminded me of Steve Cropper, especially on slower songs like her beautiful version of Percy Sledge's Warm And Tender Love. She had a great rapport with her fellow musician - often laughing and joking with him and even teasing him by playing a few notes and asking him to guess the song, then yelling NO when he got it wrong. Lisa has a great voice for the kind of bluesy rock that she specializes in. Having a great voice isn't enough though - I can think of several well-known singers that I can't stand listening to even though I have to acknowledge that they are great singers - one of them shares my name! Well Lisa has everything - as well as the voice, there's the sensitivity to know how to use it to bring out the emotions in her songs, whether a beautiful self-penned acapella or a fresh, funky version of Unchain My Heart. She began by announcing, 'this is the last night of the tour so we're gonna have some fun y'all'. And really that was what it was all about. I can't remember when I last saw someone so obviously enjoying being onstage. Listening to comments from the audience afterwards it was clear that this endeared her to them - must make a mental note of that for my own performances!

The audience consisted mainly of members of a local music club known as Mrs Yarrington's Music Club. They regularly hold events featuring all kinds of roots music at this lovely venue - an old grey-stone manor house set in beautiful countryside overlooking the sea. I hope I'll get to one of their forthcoming events - an evening of folk music from the Lofoten Isles in northern Norway. I spent some time up there, so I'm looking forward to that. Both myself and the club's organiser Mick Hoad warned Lisa that southern English audiences may seem a little more reserved than those she was used to, especially in the States, where her performance would no doubt have been punctuated by yells of 'Alriiight' and much 'whooping'. Mick and I stood at the back and did our best but, although the applause was warm and enthusiastic all through her set, it wasn't really until the end that the audience really let their guest know just how much they loved her, forcing her into three encores. And love her they did - not just for her stunning voice and great songs, but for the warm, happy personality that shone through everything she did.

And thankfully the audience seemed to enjoy my set too. I played as a duo with drummer Ian Roberts. Yes, I also like to have the freedom to not worry about other musicians knowing when I'm going to slip in a different chord, or add another chorus. Apart from All The Young Dudes, our set consisted entirely of my own songs. It was our first gig for six months and, considering we only had one rehearsal, I was very happy with the way we sounded. I'm looking forward to lots more gigs as a duo with Ian. He's a brilliant drummer and we work really well together. Sometimes he seems to guess what I'm going to do before I know I'm going to do it.

You can find out more about Lisa Mills and listen to her some of her songs at www.myspace.com/lisamillsmusic. A good track to start with is Tennessee Tears.

May 4th 2010

Had a busy few days - played a solo gig on Saturday, saw Ian Hunter and the Rant Band at the Barbican in London on Sunday night, played a solo gig on Monday and tonight had a great time playing support to Lisa Mills, a fantastic blues/rock singer from Tennessee - on the last night of her tour. Lots more to write about all that, but I just need some sleep right now.

May 1st 2010

I went for a haircut today and discovered that my regular hairdresser used to cut Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney's hair. He must have been going to their house in East Sussex at about the same time I was going there to give Linda keyboard lessons. We both agreed what a pleasure it was to work with them. We were both given photos and posters by Linda. And we were both given VIP passes to one of Paul's concerts - mine at Wembley and his in Ghent in Holland. I remember that I would often see their daughter Stella waiting with her school classmates at the bus stop to catch the bus home from school - they were just a very normal family.

April 27th 2010

I rehearsed on Sunday with my brilliant drummer Ian Roberts - for our support gig with Lisa Mills on Tuesday 4th May (see Home page). It was sounding great. As I play the bass lines with my left hand we don't need any other musicians to sound like a band. So I'm really looking forward to getting lots more gigs with him playing my own material.

April 17th 2010

I saw two TV programmes last night about Nick Drake, the English singer/songwriter who died in 1975 of an overdose of drugs which had been prescibed for depression. What a sad loss. The first programme was a concert of his songs performed by many different artists. He abandoned a tour in the early seventies because the audiences just weren't listening to him. It was a tour of colleges - not the best venues to find an audience willing to listen to his gentle, introverted songs. He just didn't have the kind of personality that would allow him to shout, 'shut up and listen'. How sad that he wasn't around to see the audience in last night's programme sitting in silence hanging on every word and every note of his exquisite songs.

April 13th 2010

The annual Hastings Beatles Day was simply amazing. It took place on Sunday 11^th April at the White Rock Theatre on the seafront. Starting at noon and continuing until 11pm, over 250 artists appeared on two stages raising £15000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. I can't imagine there being another town of a similar size that has so much musical talent. The standard from both young and old was brilliant. Beatles songs were performed in an astonishing variety of line-ups - heavy rock bands, punk bands, guitar duos, a symphony orchestra plus rock band, a large choir - and not just cover versions, but highly individual and original arrangements. I didn't get to see everyone that performed but here are some of the acts I particularly enjoyed…

• Dead Calm - a brilliant heavy rock band who played an extended medley, often deliberately wrong-footing the audience by playing the intro to one song and then going into a completely different song.
• Brooke Sharkey - a unique and supremely talented singer - stunning versions of All My Loving and Across The Universe, plus I Wanna Be Your Man performed in the style of Peggy Lee's Fever.
• Lianne Carroll with the Hastings Horns - a highly talented and popular jazz pianist/singer who was as brilliant as ever, with jazz/funk versions of Eleanor Rigby and Day Tripper.
• Claire Hamill - dressed for the occasion in Mary Quant gear, performing Norwegian Wood with a group of female singers also in authentic 60s gear (her singing pupils, I think).
• The Hastings Stage Schools - dozens of youngsters of all ages singing and dancing magnificently to Twist and Shout and Let It Be.
• The Blue Devils band with members of The Cranbrook Symphony Orchestra playing Here Comes The Sun. I think I spotted an elderly cellist later twisting vigorously in front of the stage as The Electric Beatles played Twist And Shout.
• The Phil Gill Band - fronted by Pete Prescott and some other singers whos names I didn't catch. Great versions of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and My Sweet Lord.
• The Electric Beatles - dressed in circa 1963 Beatles gear, with a front line who looked remarkably like Paul, George and John. Sounding very authentic too. I had to smile when the band were setting up and one of the stage crew moved a mike stand to centre stage for 'George' to sing into. 'George' moved it out of the way, walked over towards 'Paul' and said, 'it's OK, we share a mike'. Now who wouldn't know that!?

Pete Prescott was the main organiser and the whole thing ran like clockwork, with hardly any gaps between the bands. It was just a magnificent day that I feel privileged to have played a small part in. My own contribution was a solo piano/vocal performance of Things We Said Today, Something and a medley from the With The Beatles album. Hopefully I'll be back next year - by which time I should have a few other musicians alongside me.

April 9th 2010

I wish I was somewhere else tonight - the Cadogan Hall in London for a concert of music by one of my favourite composers Dmitri Shostakovich, conducted by his son Maxim Shostakovich. Maybe I would have got to meet him as my wife's niece plays violin with the orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic. If you think the only musicians that have interesting lives are rock musicians, you should google Dmitri Shostakovich and read about how he was constantly in fear of being imprisoned and killed by the soviet authorities. This was because his music often contained carefully disguised sarcasm, sometimes aimed at the regime. He withdrew his fourth symphony soon after he had written it and only allowed it to be performed years later because, as his son Maxim once told him, 'Papa, they will shoot you for this'.

April 8th 2010

A welcome return - in August last year I teamed up with an excellent drummer, Ian Roberts. Then, after only a couple of gigs we had to split up for various reasons. But now we can get back together again, so I'm looking forward to some great gigs and hopefully recording my songs.

I recently discovered some video clips on YouTube of Garth Rockett and The Moonshiners. Garth Rockett is actually Ian Gillan taking a break from Deep Purple in 1989. The drummer is Lou Rosenthal, who was the drummer in White Myth, the first band I played with (and now playing with The Merseybeats). Worth a look - just type Garth Rockett in the YouTube search box.

Another welcome return - after a long, cold, miserable winter I was walking on the West Hill in Hastings at about 5.40 on this perfect spring evening when I looked up and saw a swallow fluttering in from the English Channel - the first one I've seen this year. A sign of approaching summer. He must sense that there are prospects of warmer temperatures here in England - warm enough to tempt him to fly here from Africa.

April 7th 2010

I've just watched an interesting DVD - 'Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 The Home Movies'. The 'home movies' that the DVD is based around were shot by Mickey Jones who was Dylan's drummer at the time. He is interviewed throughout the video and provides some fascinating insights into that historic tour.

I have roughly the same feelings about Bob Dylan as I have about Bach - both geniuses of course, but they do go on a bit!

I was particularly interested in this video because Dylan's band at the time contained Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. Mickey Jones relates that a planned tour of Russia had to be cancelled when Bob Dylan had a motorbike accident. The four other musicians later teamed up with drummer Levon Helm to become The Band - and they produced some of the greatest music of the late sixties and early seventies.

Mickey Jones shared a hotel room with Garth Hudson, who is one of my keyboard heroes. There's a sequence where the camera slowly pans across a view from the balcony of their room at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel in Honolulu. I think my wife and I must have had almost the same room when we stayed there on holiday a few years ago as the view is pretty much the same. He relates how the two of them acted like tourists in the various places they visited. I must say I was always the same on tour. While some other members of the band would be prowling round record stores and musical instrument shops or recovering from the previous night's excesses, I would be out being a tourist - walking for miles along the beach of San Francisco Bay, ascending the Sears Tower in Chicago, taking a train up the Jungfrau in Switzerland and witnessing the sad sight of people standing on a viewing platform in the Potsdamer Platz waving to their relatives on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

When I was in New York city with the Paul Brady band, I went for a walk in Times Square with the band's other keyboard player - and encountered probably the worst example of customer-service I've ever seen. He wanted to buy a camera, so we found a shop with shelves up to the ceiling laden with cameras. The guy at the counter was getting rather impatient as he came down from his ladder for the third time with a camera for him to examine. As my colleague handed it back and said politely, 'no, I don't think so', the shop assistant smiled at him and said (in a broad New York accent), 'hey, that's a real nice T-shirt you're wearing. Let me just feel that material.' He leaned forward, grasped his skin through his shirt, twisted it hard and shouted, 'Get outa here, do you think I got all day to spend going up and down that ladder.'

April 6th 2010

I'm hoping to go to the Barbican Centre in London in May to see Ian Hunter and The Rant Band. I saw him in Brighton in 2007 and he was brilliant. To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed it from the musical viewpoint more than I enjoyed the Mott The Hoople reunion shows. I loved the Mott shows, but seeing Ian playing his own material gave me more of a buzz, because here's a man who has been making music for his whole life and still has a real cutting edge and desire to create new stuff.

On the subject of long-lost road crew members (see April 5th) - in April last year I went up to London to be interviewed for the forthcoming documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople. Phil and Richie, who had served as roadies throughout Mott's career, were also there being interviewed and I discovered that Phil also lives near me in Hastings. So my wife and I have been in touch with him ever since.

Great audience reaction at the Hilton in Eastbourne last night - particularly to my own songs. I really must do something about recording them. I'm running out of time!

April 5^th 2010

My first entry on this page - I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before. I'll use this page for any musical memories that spring to mind, and anything I think might be interesting.

I was in the supermarket a few days ago when a man with long curly hair walked up to me and said, 'is your name Mick Bolton?'. He was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners road crew on the 1985 tour. I didn't recognise him and I'm surprised he recognized me, the way I look now! He was Billy Adams' guitar technician. When we were on tour I remember that the young lady who took care of the stage clothes rather caught his eye - well, he was pleased to tell me that she is the mother of his children! After Dexys he went on to tour with the Kinks for several years and later the Beautiful South, and before Dexys he had been with the Damned. No doubt we will be meeting up for some reminiscing - probably next weekend when I'm playing at the annual Hastings Beatles Day at the White Rock Theatre - it's a charity event where local musicians each play a few Beatles songs. It should be fun - I'm going to play Things We Said Today, Something and a medley of songs from the With The Beatles album. I was 15 years old when it was released and it was just the coolest thing you could own in 1963, with the black and white cover photo of the four Beatles unsmiling in black polo-neck sweaters - very different from the usual show-bizzy album covers of the day. Many of the songs on that album were cover versions. I suppose they had only just got into song writing at the time. So my medley will be made up of some of those covers - Twist And Shout, Money, Till There Was You, Please Mister Postman and Roll Over Beethoven. I was thinking of performing the song I co-wrote with Linda McCartney - Endless Days. It would be very appropriate as the Beatles Day is in aid of the Macmillan cancer charity. But each musician only gets fifteen minutes so I think I'll just play stuff that people know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my own review of a gig by Ian Hunter in Brighton, UK - written for Two Miles From Heaven, the Mott The Hoople fan club magazine.

Ian Hunter and The Rant Band. The Komedia, Brighton. Tuesday October 30th, 2007.
Brighton - ah, bitter sweet memories of 1985. Onstage at the Brighton Centre with Dexys Midnight Runners. Dear old Vincent Crane hammering away at the Steinway grand. Kevin Rowland marching across the stage in his brogues demanding: "Give it to me, give it to me" as the band chant: "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." The 11-piece juggernaut shudders to a sudden halt. Kevin turns to the audience and pleads simply: "Respect - you know?!" A couple of weeks later the band split up and Kevin had to wait well over a decade till the Don't Stand Me Down album was re-released and finally got the respect it deserved. I seem to remember that Kevin had a lot of respect for Ian Hunter - in fact it was because I had played Hammond organ with Mott the Hoople that he gave me an audition.

The last time I had seen Ian was at the final concert of our UK tour in 1973 - yes, the legendary Hammersmith Odeon gig featuring a safety-curtain, an angry mob and a guitarist who didn't know when to run for his life. Thirty four years later, as he walked into the Komedia in Brighton for the last night of another UK tour, my old boss had hardly changed at all, but it took him a moment or two before he recognised his former employee. We talked for a few minutes before the gig and he told me that he had been having a great time on this tour. He had met a lot of old friends including Mick Ralphs and Verden Allen who had both joined him onstage a couple of nights before in Shepherds Bush. He seemed pleased to hear about the various bands I had been with and that I was still playing regularly.

A few acoustic guitar chords from Ian led into Ballad Of Mott The Hoople - a great slow-building opener with its comments about various Mott members. When it came to the line about Overend he changed it to "and Mick Bolton's still a rock and roll star". If only, Ian! Once Bitten Twice Shy followed without a break - surely one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever - and as the Rant band crunched into top gear for the first time it was like being run over by a truck, but a lot more fun. As the last chord faded Ian whipped off his guitar and said: "that's it, I'm off." If he had left the stage after just those two songs it would still have been worth the admission price - although I might have begrudged the fifteen quid I had to pay for the car park! Fifteen quid?!

Ian looked cool and relaxed in a casual short sleeved shirt with broad horizontal brown and white stripes - something he would only have worn in '73 if his stage gear had been lost in transit or if he was trying to avoid being recognised by the fans. In between songs he talked to the audience as naturally if he was chatting with an old friend, expressing delight and pride at the success of the Shrunken Heads album but not ashamed to admit that, except for a few songs, he didn't think much of his 1980s output. The superb Seeing Double was one of those exceptions. He told us the story of how a young friend of the family had given him the fright of his life by putting a large pet snake around his neck. What started as a funny story finally led into the tragic Twisted Steel - 'and if I cry it makes no difference, and if I don't I lose my innocence' - she died in one of the twin towers. I remember that Ian always dealt quite dismissively and efficiently with hecklers and tonight was no exception: "Ah, I see we have a wit in the audience. Listen mate, I played in Liverpool last week - there's nothing you can do to me."

The songs from Shrunken Heads showed that Ian's writing is as strong as ever - the powerful Soul Of America, the quirky Words (Big Mouth), the monumental title track and the brilliant single When The World Was Round.

That unique rasping voice was in great form throughout - aided by a packet of throat lozenges that he unashamedly popped in his mouth from time to time. They should employ him to advertise them - they certainly seem to work. At one point he hit a high note that he held so loud and long that it drew a ripple of applause.

Of the Mott The Hoople material my favourite was a swaggering performance of Angeline - quintessential early MTH; rough, ragged and gloriously devoid of any attempt at subtlety. Roll Away The Stone, the song that I remember getting a few moronic yells of "sell-out" when we first played it on the UK tour, was pure fun. Jesse Malin, who had earlier been the excellent support act, joined in on backing vocals. Ian stepped aside to allow him to sing the lead on one of the verses (which he did brilliantly) and he played the Thunderthighs role in the spoken section. The second biggest cheer of the night came when Ian hammered out the piano intro to All The Way From Memphis. I had played these songs many times but this was the first time I had seen and heard them performed from the audience's perspective. No wonder those who saw Mott The Hoople still rave about them if that's what the band sounded like. I lost count of the songs that had the audience punching the air and joining in on the chorus. It's a lethal combination really - a bunch of great rock and roll songs, with choruses you can sing along to, played very very loud by a great band. And the Rant Band are a great band, individually and collectively. Mark Bosch was mesmerising - just a stunning guitarist, knowing exactly when to stay faithful to the original, as in All The Way From Memphis where he captures Mick's guitar phrasing and tone perfectly in the opening verses; and when to cut loose, as he does later in the same song.

I must have been the only one in the audience who had never even heard the brilliant Saturday Gigs. I've got quite a lot of catching up to do. Finally the biggest cheer of the night greeted those famous descending guitar notes and a triumphant All The Young Dudes closed the concert with Ian's daughter Tracie contributing to the backing vocals. It was good to see his wife Trudy again too after all those years. She seemed to be very much involved in the 'family business' - taking charge of the merchandising counter and dealing with other matters backstage.

After a performance like that I expected Ian to be too exhausted to receive visitors after the show, so it was nice to be invited into the dressing room and even nicer when I went to shake hands and say goodnight along with the other guests but was invited to stay instead. We sat and talked for a good half hour about the old days, the break up of the band, the time they almost reformed and lots of stuff that I'm sure you would love to know…but my big mouth is staying shut.

What a great night. I almost felt able to forgive the car park attendant on the way out. But - fifteen quid??!!

Mick Bolton

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEWSLETTERS

Newsletter 1 (September 2009)

Hello everyone - thanks for subscribing to my newsletter, though I expect some of you had forgotten that you ever did. It's taken a while, but at last I have a few things worth putting in a newsletter.

MOTT THE HOOPLE - MEET THE KEYBOARDS

Mott The Hoople are reforming to perform five 40th anniversary concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo between October 1 and October 6th, 2009. The line-up will be the original band from 1969 which won't include myself or any of the other musicians who joined the band from 1973 onwards. But we aren't going to let that stop us! Myself, Morgan Fisher and Blue Weaver will be staging an event called Mott The Hoople - Meet The Keyboards. When I joined the band in 1973 on organ, Morgan joined on piano and Blue Weaver played organ on tour in 1974 after I left.

The event will take place at a venue called The Regal Room. This is at The Distillers, 64 Fulham Palace Rd, Hammersmith, London w6 - a music pub just around the corner from the Apollo. It will be on Monday and Tuesday, October 5th and 6th from 1.30 in the afternoon.

Morgan will be showing a 40 minute film called Mott in America which he shot on tour with the band in 1974. Each of us will be performing a short solo set and there will be a guest appearance by John Fiddler, formerly with Medicine Head and later with Morgan and the remaining members of Mott when they appeared as British Lions after Ian Hunter had left.

I will be playing three of my songs: Rainbow Over Michigan (which is about being on tour with Mott), Musical Differences (which isn't about Mott but probably sounds as though it is, as the words are a wry look at a band on the verge of breaking up) and a new song called Under The Glitter Ball. Morgan will be performing Mott's song Saturday Gigs and Blue is planning a medley of songs by various bands that he played with including The Strawbs and The Bee Gees. We will all probably join in each others' songs on backing vocals and we are planning a grand finale of Mott's song All The Way From Memphis with all three of us playing on one grand piano and John Fiddler singing the lead vocal and playing guitar - it should be fun, especially as we won't get the chance to rehearse together as Morgan lives in Japan, Blue in Spain and John in the USA. We've been swopping opinions on the chord sequence by email, so hopefully we'll agree on it by then and it'll be alright on the night - well, in the afternoon actually! There will also be a chance for the audience to ask questions. Admission is £20. The capacity of the venue is only 100 so it will be first-come-first-served. More details of this and a couple of other events involving Morgan Fisher are on my Mott The Hoople Reunion - extra events page.

Morgan, Blue and I will be going to some of the Mott The Hoople concerts. We've been promised backstage passes so it will be interesting to meet my former colleagues again - most of them after a 36 year gap, although I met Ian Hunter a couple of years ago at his gig in Brighton. I know from seeing him that night that he's still a superb live performer (at the age of 70, I think) and Mick Ralphs the guitarist performed quite recently on tour with Ian, so it will be interesting to see how the whole band work together after all this time. I expect I'll be taking a few photos, so they will appear on my site eventually.

MICK BOLTON AND IAN ROBERTS

I have recently teamed up with an excellent drummer Ian Roberts. He also plays bass and guitar and we are hoping to go into the studio soon to make an album of my songs. The album will be called Musical Differences. Meanwhile we have been perfoming gigs as a duo and getting a great reaction from the audiences. See my gigs page for details of forthcoming gigs. On my Music page you can hear us playing a live demo of Under The Glitter Ball.

2009 UK SONGWRITING CONTEST

I entered two songs into this years contest. Both reached the semi-finals. They are The White Cliffs Of England and an instrumental called At Sea. Not quite as successful as last year when Me And My Old Piano reached the finals, but there's always next year.

That's all for now. No doubt there'll be photos and stuff from Mott The Hoople - Meet The Keyboards on my site soon - and there will be updates on the progress of recording the Musical Differences album with Ian Roberts in my next newsletter.

Thanks for subscibing.

Mick