I can't work out how to make them separate posts so unfortunately they all run on from each other.
JOHN'S CHILDREN
GEORGE BENSON
FRANK TURNER
AKALA
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JOHN'S CHILDREN, THE VON TRAPPS OF THE 60s - ANDY ELLISON REFLECTS
THE downfall of the short-lived yet legendary mod-rock hellraisers John’s Children – whose line-up included a young Marc Bolan – reads like an adult version of the Sound of Music.
As the Von Trapps distracted their audience with So Long, Farewell, escaped from the Germans, and into the darkness, John’s Children caused a riot during their 1967 support set for The Who in Ludwigshafen, in torn clothes disappeared into a waiting car, escaping into the night while fire engines with water cannons attempted to quell the chaos they left behind.
Here, they were not so much escaping the Germans as being deported by German police who had had enough of their antics and confiscated their equipment, while The Who kicked them off tour.
This was the spectacular beginning of the end for John’s Children, a band notorious for their onstage fights featuring fake blood, stage diving, feathers, nudity, banned records and, for bringing shy acoustic folk singer Marc Bolan out of his shell, and plugging him into electric guitar mayhem.
According to lead singer Andy Ellison, in Luxemburg after that fateful night in Germany, Bolan, spellbound by Ravi Shankar’s cross-legged gentle sitar and bongo playing, promptly left John’s Children and took on a similar stance in the early days of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Said Ellison: “Marc was incredibly shy when we met him but we turned him into this maniac onstage with his guitar. I think he thought it was getting too out of control, we’ve lost all our equipment and he’d try somewhere else.”
Ellison’s wild ways were apparent early on. Sent to boarding school in Devon, he soon organised the whole school to run away.
He said: “We lived on Exmoor for two days till we were caught by police helicopters. We took sacks full of live chickens and disappeared by the river so they couldn’t track us.”
At his next boarding school he met drummer Chris Townson, later forming mod band The Silence.
Townson and bassist John Hewlett met The Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell during a lost few days in St Tropez, convincing him to come see them play at a swimming pool.
“He got the shock of his life because I don’t think he’d ever seen a band quite like us. I was singing and diving from the top diving board, Chris tipped the drum kit in the pool.”
Shrewd Napier-Bell, who later managed Wham! and Japan, dressed the group in angelic white and later brought in Marc Bolan.
Once the boys had their first hit, they bought a club in Leatherhead, playing host to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Cat Stevens.
Publicity opportunist Napier-Bell, shipped over Al Capone’s Oldsmobile, sprayed it white and employed a Hells Angels motorcade.
Ellison, who is writing a book, lives in Camden and is the only remaining member left, has revived the band’s name and is bringing John’s Children to Camden Barfly on July 28 to mark 60s week.
He’s tracked down a talented group from Finland who can emulate John’s Children’s sound.
Time may have passed but Ellison promises to bring some of that John’s Children performing spirit along, warning: “Lock up your mothers and wear suitable clothing.”
• Album Black and White is out now.
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JOHN'S CHILDREN
GEORGE BENSON
FRANK TURNER
AKALA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN'S CHILDREN, THE VON TRAPPS OF THE 60s - ANDY ELLISON REFLECTS
THE downfall of the short-lived yet legendary mod-rock hellraisers John’s Children – whose line-up included a young Marc Bolan – reads like an adult version of the Sound of Music.
As the Von Trapps distracted their audience with So Long, Farewell, escaped from the Germans, and into the darkness, John’s Children caused a riot during their 1967 support set for The Who in Ludwigshafen, in torn clothes disappeared into a waiting car, escaping into the night while fire engines with water cannons attempted to quell the chaos they left behind.
Here, they were not so much escaping the Germans as being deported by German police who had had enough of their antics and confiscated their equipment, while The Who kicked them off tour.
This was the spectacular beginning of the end for John’s Children, a band notorious for their onstage fights featuring fake blood, stage diving, feathers, nudity, banned records and, for bringing shy acoustic folk singer Marc Bolan out of his shell, and plugging him into electric guitar mayhem.
According to lead singer Andy Ellison, in Luxemburg after that fateful night in Germany, Bolan, spellbound by Ravi Shankar’s cross-legged gentle sitar and bongo playing, promptly left John’s Children and took on a similar stance in the early days of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Said Ellison: “Marc was incredibly shy when we met him but we turned him into this maniac onstage with his guitar. I think he thought it was getting too out of control, we’ve lost all our equipment and he’d try somewhere else.”
Ellison’s wild ways were apparent early on. Sent to boarding school in Devon, he soon organised the whole school to run away.
He said: “We lived on Exmoor for two days till we were caught by police helicopters. We took sacks full of live chickens and disappeared by the river so they couldn’t track us.”
At his next boarding school he met drummer Chris Townson, later forming mod band The Silence.
Townson and bassist John Hewlett met The Yardbirds manager Simon Napier-Bell during a lost few days in St Tropez, convincing him to come see them play at a swimming pool.
“He got the shock of his life because I don’t think he’d ever seen a band quite like us. I was singing and diving from the top diving board, Chris tipped the drum kit in the pool.”
Shrewd Napier-Bell, who later managed Wham! and Japan, dressed the group in angelic white and later brought in Marc Bolan.
Once the boys had their first hit, they bought a club in Leatherhead, playing host to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Cat Stevens.
Publicity opportunist Napier-Bell, shipped over Al Capone’s Oldsmobile, sprayed it white and employed a Hells Angels motorcade.
Ellison, who is writing a book, lives in Camden and is the only remaining member left, has revived the band’s name and is bringing John’s Children to Camden Barfly on July 28 to mark 60s week.
He’s tracked down a talented group from Finland who can emulate John’s Children’s sound.
Time may have passed but Ellison promises to bring some of that John’s Children performing spirit along, warning: “Lock up your mothers and wear suitable clothing.”
• Album Black and White is out now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GEORGE BENSON - OR MR ROMANTIC AS WE KNOW HIM
HE CALLS himself Mr Romantic, his career began with some fortuitous skip-diving and he once lost out on a Grammy to Ella Fitzgerald.
Pop and smooth jazz guitarist George Benson has more than 48 albums in his own name and enough awards to fill out his own personal hall of fame.
He plays Kenwood concerts on July 2, his only UK date this year, although he confesses to not knowing the venue: “I like the sound of it. It sounds very English. My agents made that decision so it must be great because they know I don’t like mediocrity.”
(Easy listening duelling banjos)
Liza Minelli, Tom Jones and James Blunt will each headline a night at the heath concerts.
But in the meantime, Benson is chilling at his scorching Paradise Valley, Arizona, home, enjoying his long marriage and sharing romantic tips with grooves.
Benson’s first encounter with strings came young.
He said: “My stepfather played the guitar so I wanted to play too. My hands were too small so he found a ukelele in a garbage can, it was all broken up. He glued it back together, put strings on it and taught me to play the first few chords. I ran with that because I had good ears.”
Benson was soon busking on Pittsburgh street corners: “People were filling my cousin’s baseball cap with money. What I didn’t know was that a lot of famous people saw me and when I grew up I found out who they were – Charlie Parker, people like that.”
Asked to pick a preferred song from his vast back catalogue, he said: “I like in your eyes, that’s my favourite because it’s a romantic song and that’s what I call myself, Mr Romantic.”
He must be doing something right, having been married for 46 years: “The secret is making room for the other person. Even though I still believe, like the bible said, the man of the house has to make the decisions basically but to do it without your partner doesn’t make any sense.
“Why have a partner? To help you see things from different perspectives. My wife gives me all the things I can’t see, the parts I don’t understand. When I get her input I know what decision to make and I make it with her in mind. She comes up with great ideas. If I didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Benson’s bashful fear of exposing his flaws has melted: “I play music every day in the house, she listens to me. I wouldn’t do that years ago because I didn’t want her to hear all the mistakes I was making but as we got older our mistakes became fewer so I’m doing it in front of her now.”
He has no need for set lists: “I never know what it’s going to be like until I get there and feel the environment. My band is versatile and I’ve a lot of great songs. I know the English know most of the hits but we’re planning to introduce a couple of new things.
“Normally we just go out there and I start hollering songs to my band, fire this one up, see what happens. We call ourselves musicians and we’re at the higher echelons of things. What allows us to do that is our association with jazz...The greatest experience I have are the years playing jazz music because it taught me how to improvise.”
He recalls the day he won Record of the Year 1976 at the Grammys as a turning point in his career, but one which nearly passed his mother by: “My mother missed the event because she was working... and when I didn’t win the jazz singer’s award, won by Ella Fitzgerald – that’s understandable isn’t it? – she cut the TV off. She was so mad at Ella Fitzgerald for winning the award she thought should’ve been mine she missed the last part where I came up for Record of the Year. When she got home my brother came flying out of the house saying “Mom he won” and she didn’t see it. Boy she was done in by that so I had to send her a video copy.”
Since then Benson’s sold more than 60 million records.
He says he only has 10 Grammys, but also has plaques for about 40 nominations as well as over 50 gold and platinum albums, adding: “Your house will start looking like a museum if you put up all these records so I keep them in the closet. I put up a few around the house to remind people they’re in a musician’s house.”
• More information and full line-up from www.picnicconcerts.com
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HE CALLS himself Mr Romantic, his career began with some fortuitous skip-diving and he once lost out on a Grammy to Ella Fitzgerald.
Pop and smooth jazz guitarist George Benson has more than 48 albums in his own name and enough awards to fill out his own personal hall of fame.
He plays Kenwood concerts on July 2, his only UK date this year, although he confesses to not knowing the venue: “I like the sound of it. It sounds very English. My agents made that decision so it must be great because they know I don’t like mediocrity.”
(Easy listening duelling banjos)
Liza Minelli, Tom Jones and James Blunt will each headline a night at the heath concerts.
But in the meantime, Benson is chilling at his scorching Paradise Valley, Arizona, home, enjoying his long marriage and sharing romantic tips with grooves.
Benson’s first encounter with strings came young.
He said: “My stepfather played the guitar so I wanted to play too. My hands were too small so he found a ukelele in a garbage can, it was all broken up. He glued it back together, put strings on it and taught me to play the first few chords. I ran with that because I had good ears.”
Benson was soon busking on Pittsburgh street corners: “People were filling my cousin’s baseball cap with money. What I didn’t know was that a lot of famous people saw me and when I grew up I found out who they were – Charlie Parker, people like that.”
Asked to pick a preferred song from his vast back catalogue, he said: “I like in your eyes, that’s my favourite because it’s a romantic song and that’s what I call myself, Mr Romantic.”
He must be doing something right, having been married for 46 years: “The secret is making room for the other person. Even though I still believe, like the bible said, the man of the house has to make the decisions basically but to do it without your partner doesn’t make any sense.
“Why have a partner? To help you see things from different perspectives. My wife gives me all the things I can’t see, the parts I don’t understand. When I get her input I know what decision to make and I make it with her in mind. She comes up with great ideas. If I didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Benson’s bashful fear of exposing his flaws has melted: “I play music every day in the house, she listens to me. I wouldn’t do that years ago because I didn’t want her to hear all the mistakes I was making but as we got older our mistakes became fewer so I’m doing it in front of her now.”
He has no need for set lists: “I never know what it’s going to be like until I get there and feel the environment. My band is versatile and I’ve a lot of great songs. I know the English know most of the hits but we’re planning to introduce a couple of new things.
“Normally we just go out there and I start hollering songs to my band, fire this one up, see what happens. We call ourselves musicians and we’re at the higher echelons of things. What allows us to do that is our association with jazz...The greatest experience I have are the years playing jazz music because it taught me how to improvise.”
He recalls the day he won Record of the Year 1976 at the Grammys as a turning point in his career, but one which nearly passed his mother by: “My mother missed the event because she was working... and when I didn’t win the jazz singer’s award, won by Ella Fitzgerald – that’s understandable isn’t it? – she cut the TV off. She was so mad at Ella Fitzgerald for winning the award she thought should’ve been mine she missed the last part where I came up for Record of the Year. When she got home my brother came flying out of the house saying “Mom he won” and she didn’t see it. Boy she was done in by that so I had to send her a video copy.”
Since then Benson’s sold more than 60 million records.
He says he only has 10 Grammys, but also has plaques for about 40 nominations as well as over 50 gold and platinum albums, adding: “Your house will start looking like a museum if you put up all these records so I keep them in the closet. I put up a few around the house to remind people they’re in a musician’s house.”
• More information and full line-up from www.picnicconcerts.com
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FRANK TURNER - TOUR ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
FRANK Turner’s the first to admit he’s got a touch of OCD about him but a quick glance at his website could tell you that.
Much like those tour T-shirts with the tiny print detailing all the dates a veteran band has played, Turner’s website lists every gig he’s played over the past few years.
In fact his version of a touring T-shirt would need a Princess Diana wedding dress train just to fit his dates.
In fact his version of a touring T-shirt would need a Princess Diana wedding dress train just to fit his dates.
But the punk-folk-poet, speaking on the eve of his 1000th solo show, is not satisfied.
He said: “I’m slightly OCD in keeping a list of all the gigs I’ve played. I did it for the last band I was in but I’m really annoyed with myself that I didn’t do it for the two touring bands I was in before. It would be amazing to have a complete list of every show I’ve ever played in my life. I don’t alas have that.”
These days Turner, who plays Barfly Camden on June 6 is more used to playing large venues but, after some pleading from die-hard fans, he’s touring some of the UK’s smaller venues.
Touring seems to be an addiction: “I love doing it. I like to think of myself more in the tradition of BB King and old blues and jazz players, people who played every day. There’s this thing...where people call themselves musicians and do 20 shows in a year. That seems slightly weird because to me being a musician means actually playing. The studio’s kind of fine but I slightly regard it as a means to an end. Being onstage is the bread and butter of my job. It’s not something I push myself to do. I want to do more.”
And he really is a proper rolling stone. Until recently, home was a room at his mum’s house where he stashed his stuff while on the road but the house has now been sold and he doesn’t own or rent his own place.
He said: “I’m now very much detached from all ties but the more time I spend moving around – and it’s been pretty solid the last five or six years – I kind of think of England generally as home. I feel at home if I can sit in a greasy spoon café, read an English newspaper and watch some cricket on the telly.”
His father’s family is from north London and he’s got a soft spot for Camden.
He said: “I spent an awful lot of time there. Some friends of mine run The Wheelbarrow, that’s my hangout and the people who run it they’re my people so if ever I get an evening to myself in London I’ll be propping up the bar again. Back in the day one of my favourite things to do on a hot sunny day was to drink a beer and sit out by the canal right down on the level next to the water.”
That said, he harbours ambitions to settle on the other side of the Atlantic: “I’m very much an Americaphile. America’s an endlessly wonderful country. One of my pet hates is these boring ill-informed armchair anti-Americans which you get a lot of in this country – people who spend four days in New York on holiday once and sit there pontificating on America. I’m an enormous fan of the deep south. It gets a bad press in terms of international stereotypes. It’s a fantastic place, very beautiful, an honest, salt of the earth culture out there, people look out for their own, build their own houses. I‘ve a long term plan to move to Montana one day, it’s probably the freeest place in the world. I’m quite a cranky libertarian type, it’s great, there’s just no law essentially and that quite appeals to me.”
But ask him where he holidayed and up go the defences: “Southern Europe.”
Care to be a little more specific?: “I want to keep it to myself, I have quite clear lines about things I talk about and things I don’t. It’s something I’ll keep to myself.”
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AKALA 'S CONUNDRUM
“MAYBE it’s hatred I spew, maybe it’s food for the spirit,” – Shakespeare or an internationally reknowned rapper?
This is just one of the tests Akala poses in his quest to show young people the Bard’s work is not as archaic as they think.
For those who couldn’t work it out, the answer’s Eminem, on Renegade with Jay-Z.
The success of the hip-hop Shakespeare Company – which explores the social, cultural and linguistic parallels between Shakespeare and hip-hop – spearheaded by rapper Akala aka Kingslee Daley, and brother of Ms Dynamite, has not gone unnoticed.
They’ve featured on CNN, there’s a film in the pipeline and they’re due to appear at the Roundhouse Studios during the Camden Crawl (April 30-May 1).
Any trepidation youngsters have when joining a workshop is immediately broken when faced with the Shakespeare v Rapper test.
Kingslee, who grew up in Camden, and went to Acland Burghley School, said: “We ask if they think they can tell the difference between a quote from one of their favourite rappers and Shakespeare and they all say it’d be obvious, Shakespeare’s so different, so old. We do the test and no one can ever tell the difference.
“Once you take the language out of context you start to get a sense of how much your perception affects your treatment of art... Whether you like it or not, that’s just a part of the human condition. You make these judgements not solely based on the quality of the work and that’s what really becomes obvious to people.”
The Company aims to remove the elitism that surrounds Shakespeare, the “ignorant crass stereotypes” that surround hip-hop and to highlight entitlement.
Kingslee was attracted to Shakespeare from an early age because of its parallels to the lyrical music he already listened to: “It just clicked with me this is the same kind of stuff I already listen to – it’s poetry...he captured to human condition the way few writers have,” and is torn between Hamlet and Richard II as his favourite play.
He said: “Richard II is the most rhythmic, it sounds like a rap. Hamlet for the complexity of the story, the betrayal, the cauldron of feelings – it’s maybe his strongest character.”
The project has provided jobs and training for some of the most promising participants. One young writer has gone on to scribe plays for the Young Vic and Kingslee hopes one day to set up a whole institution dedicated to the cause.
Kingslee said: “Ultimately we all want the same thing – young people that can read and write well and are enthusiastic about language. Whatever methods we use that are most effective – that is the most sensible thing to do.”
• Further info from www.hiphopshakespeare.com
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