Pop Shield

Last night I heard from Henry that veteran blues singer Chicken Man had passed away aged 93. At least people think he was 93. He couldn’t remember exactly which year he was born. He might have been 89.

And so, I was reminded of the day in 2009 when Chicken Man was invited by Ted Robbins to Little Sister Radio to do a session. Earlier that day I had mixed an African dance band for Clarice. You may recall that this band had the most exciting rhythm section in the whole of Africa. Clarice scribbled down some things for me to ask Chicken Man.

Henry had warned me to expect a ‘bit of a character’. By this he meant that when he had met Chicken Man in 2004, he was still picking up the ladies on tour aged 84. Ish. He started playing the blues when his fifth wife left him and gave him a guitar as a leaving present. He is said to have fathered 26 children.

Chicken Man has a catchphrase. “I’m a LAYDEES maan.“ He says it rather a lot, onstage and off. Today is no exception.

When I arrive, Chicken Man is rooted to a chair in the middle of the room smelling of whiskey. I say hello. He shakes my hand several times and doesn’t seem to want to let go. He is a ladies’ man, he tells me. “So I hear” I say and start rigging mics and stands around him.

Before the session I had spoken to the radio plugger to inform him what would be involved. Some live tracks, an interview with Ted, some pre-recorded up-tempo foot-tappers and idents for Clarice. The plugger sounds concerned when I mention the idents. “Oh, we’ve tried this kind of thing in the past without much success. Also, we can’t predict in advance which song he is going to start playing at any given moment.“

This doesn’t dissuade me too much. “OK, we’ll how about we write it out all clearly for him?”

“No use, he doesn’t read nor write, he’s the real deal.“

“OK! Let’s just see what happens.”

There is a young sidekick involved called Ernie. He is Chicken Man’s touring drummer, who took him under his wing when they shared the same bill once, got him back out on tour. Decided to give back, he says. The relationship is endearing, but also there’s an undertone of something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Ernie is like some kind of musical care worker stroke puppeteer stroke interpreter. He works miracles with the instructions. Just bellows them out, winds up the clockwork mechanism on the side of the octogenarian blues guy, lets go and it all unfolds, albeit chaotically.

I roll the tape.

“OK, CHICK. THE LADY’S NAME IS CLARICE. CAN YOU SAY THAT?“

“Your name…is Kerry!”

“HEY NEARLY!!! NOW SAY “I’M CHICKEN MAN!“

Hey Kerry… I’m Chicken Man.”

THAT’S GREAT!!! GOOD!!

Best show IDs in a long time.

We go on air with the session. Given that Chicken Man is high on JD and speaking in a Mississippi drawl, Ted does an excellent job of holding it all together for the listener. The talk-song-talk format goes out the window, but what the hell. He’s Chicken Man. A Laydees Maan.

THE VIGIL (PART TWO)

So, today I was keen to see if the playlist protester was still camped outside the Nations Favourite.  Seeing as he had threatened not to leave until he gets play listed, I was thinking it pretty likely. Then, sure enough, sometime in the afternoon he rocked up – without the two girls – and with a brand new and MASSIVE cardboard placard.  The sign says I’M NOT LEAVING UNTIL OCTOBER WHEN UNI STARTS.  It is an improvement on yesterday’s – it’s big and multicoloured and it even mentions his artist name.  I cross the street to ask him whether I can take another picture, and whether he has any promotional CDs with him to give to anyone wanting to play his record on the radio.  He doesn’t.

It feels like I am working in an embassy today. An unsigned musician and his two companions have been camped outside the nations favourite for several hours now. Quite refreshingly they have opted for an old school write-on-a-cardboard box approach. The guy is protesting about not having his record played on the radio and blames the lack of a record deal.

It’s a week before Mudstock.  Everyone getting antsy.  I’ve just been copied into this wonderful email from the Patronising Equipment Centre:

Sorry for the curtness of this email, but your department has been told on numerous occasions that the 3rd cart player (which we took in as a favour and won’t be doing again) is not caching and can someone come and look at it. Nothing was done. It is all the way on 6th floor bridge MSP and will have taken up, when it’s all said and done, about 4/5 hours of our time setting it up & moving it around, which we don’t have spare. So, if you’re expecting the data to be on there it probably won’t be. If the proverbial hits the fan because of this, we had better not be apportioned ANY of the blame as we have gone way beyond the call of duty on this with no help from the people who actually are responsible for the 3rd cartwall. To answer your question, it will be moved back to the Pat Eq Ctre tomorrow for 2pm.

Boy, what a day! I started the morning pretty exhausted after a looong night at Horse Craze last night, but – oh no – an easy ride was not to be had!

First off, our morning band Jaguar Baguar get stuck in traffic and after several phone calls they arrive, stressed out and over an hour late for Little Sister Live. There’s a scramble and I manage to get a balance together. Jaguar Baguar fall on air, and it kind of works, lacking in refinement admittedly.

We haven’t managed to record the usual extra off-air track, so I quickly check the calendar to see if the studio is free afterwards. There is a Clarice booking pencilled in, so I leave a message for AD to let me know whether he needs the studio time. We get it done.

Throughout the busy morning, I receive endless phone calls. ”The band are not here” (OK). “The band are still not here” (OK). ”The band are here” (I’m coming). “I have some people in reception for you to come and collect” (I’m a bit busy, can you send them up?). ”Hi, where do you want these two cabinets, then?” (er, bit busy, can I call you back…no? oh, in that case please can you put them in the corridor) ”Hi, I’m really sorry, but about that Clarice booking, well a troop of Korean traditional musicians never confirmed, but now they have unexpectedly arrived in reception to record a session and I need you to do it if possible.” What??? I kid you not. Nice one AD! Can’t really say no when they’ve come all the way from Seoul 🙂

As soon as Jaguar Baguar are done, I run away out of the overheated studio into the fresh air to go and grab some lunch. I leave AD to handle the load in.  Spot some Koreans on the way out through reception.  Run! Head down! Do not pass go, do not collect £200!

When I return to the studio I haven’t a clue what to expect. I find there are four Korean musicians sitting on the floor plucking long wooden zither-like instruments with short sticks. I say ‘hello’ to everyone and discover to my delight that their manager has an extraordinarily long handshake.  Goes on for ages. She introduces me to their sound engineer who speaks no English but has a much shorter handshake. I try and sense if he is hostile or not, but the cultural differences are too big to tell. He sounds cross but he’s smiling a lot. I think it’s ok. The manager translates what he needs to tell me and it’s all pretty familiar stuff. This is where you need to capture the plucking, this is where the resonance is, and so on. You will probably need eight Schroeder U87 microphones (sounds the same when you say it in Korean) placed around here and here. One of the many wonderful things about sound engineering is that it transcends language. Well, I certainly don’t have eight big boys, but I find as many quality condensers and short stands as I can and spread them around, derigging from the previous session as I go.  And trying very very hard not to step on any custom-built zithers.

One of the players has brought an unfathomably cute daughter holding a yellow teddy bear. It’s like a mascot carrying a mascot. She is being looked after by the manager in the control room. Before long I get her on the talkback giving instructions to the musicians, which goes down pretty well. After that she falls into a deep sleep during the second take, tired from a long flight and all the excitement.

Now, about the music. In the absence of any reference points or any kind of mental preparation whatsoever I’m not entirely sure what the intended sound is from what I now discover is a “geomungo” orchestra. If it is a brace of ducks, that is good news.

We record. They listen back. ”Are you happy?” I ask. ”No. Yes, happy sound but not happy playing. We do it again. Now, we are bit more happy, but not very happy. But we must go to another radio show.” An endless string of thankyous and smiles and goodbyes. And off they pluck to The Mothership.