Chris Who? Fave Things Recordings
Pictures Reviews Wasted UK 2006
'Some Communication'
March 2008
Welcome to a new website update and a new year. Let us first tie up a few loose ends by starting in December 2007 where the last communication left off. My first gig during December last year was my 3rd visit to The Boat Inn, Cromford. It’s a nice pub in a small Derbyshire dales village and the gig was (like my previous visits to the venue) with Eastfield. There was a slightly different set-up on this occasion as the pub had changed owners and instead of playing in the cellar bar below the pub regulars and people who don’t like a bit of noise, we were this time performing in the main bar area. This made the gig free admission and made it an enjoyable night with its mixture of people coming along for the music, pub regulars and the pool team who had a home match that night! We shuffled around tables and chairs to get enough room to set up the equipment in front of the Xmas tree and open fire. It all looked very seasonal and as if we were about to play some Xmas carols. Oddo, the Eastfield drummer must have felt like he was performing in a sauna with the roaring fire behind him and luckily no-one threw any more logs on when it eventually died down! Eastfield played two storming sets with a ½ hour set by myself sandwiched between. Class 20’s Of The Apocalypse, Rugeley Crimestoppers, Burt Reynolds Rides Again, Sharks Against Surfers, Broad Street Trash, Pepper, John’s Not Mad, Come To Bevland, Beast Of Bratislava and many more songs were played throughout Eastfield’s two fine sets. It was a pleasure to see Eastfield and support them again and my set was: Don’t Come Back, Tony Says Good Luck, Celebrity Bus Crash, Don’t Vote BNP, A Good Upbringing, See You In Hell and ‘Phone In Well. Eastfield were nice enough to let me join them again for a rousing version of Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit, the Gina G cover. This was great fun as always. Cheers to Nick and the Cromford gang for the gig, Eastfield, the landlord of the Boat Inn for the warm welcome, to Keith Peace and Andy for the support and anyone else who took an interest.
Next gig during December and my last gig of 2007 was another appearance at Sawyers in Kettering. Playing with Derbyshire’s own The Re-Entrants and Dave Boy Fish And The Wheel, I was the first act to take to the stage on this diverse acoustic night. It was good to play my favourite venue again and the warm welcome by everyone made up for my performance (in my opinion) not being as good as I would have hoped. This was due to a cut running along the length of the front of my little finger of my left hand which was agony whenever I held down a guitar string. The cut was from one of my cats who whilst being very poorly recently found her own way of letting me know she wasn’t keen on the medicine that we had to give her! I managed to keep things together with my guitar playing until the last song and then unfortunately, with the cut opening up again and a certain degree of pain, I sort of strummed my way through the last song just hoping to reach the end. Anyway, the gig was still a real pleasure to perform at and so thanks to everyone who turned out to support the evening including Trina, Bambi, Oddo, Paul and Loretta and the new friends made on the night. Many thanks as ever to Rich and Lianne of Sawyers and of course Dan who always makes my guitar sound a lot better than it ever should do! My set was See You In Hell, Tony Says Good Luck, ‘Phone In Well, Celebrity Bus Crash, Don’t Vote BNP, Don’t Come Back and Sharks Against Surfers. Dave Boy Fish And The Wheel followed my set and were very entertaining with their surreal songs and musical ability. The Bonzo Dog Band sprang to mind and I’m sure they would have done to you too had you been there. They were nice lads too. The Re-Entrants rounded off the evening with a fine set of cover songs played on ukuleles. The audience loved it as each song started with a ‘what are they going to perform next’ anticipation from the crowd. The Buzzcocks, Kylie Minogue, Franz Ferdinand, Soft Cell, Motorhead, Tom Jones, Madonna and loads more artists were covered by a duo comprising of just a ukulele each. Thanks to Phil for the lift to and from the gig. Not only was it much appreciated but Phil’s driving skills back to Derbyshire after the gig in such dense fog were above and beyond the call of duty. Well done mate.
Looking
back on 2007, it was my most prolific year in terms of playing live. I still
tend to say that I average about a gig a month throughout the year, but 2007 was
a record (for me) with 21 performances. You can find all the information on the
past gigs on the website of course should you so wish. It was a wide range of
gigs as usual, from folk gigs to punk gigs, in pubs, clubs and festivals.
Benefit gigs, a radio station appearance and sometimes appearing with some
wonderful artists including Danbert Nobacon, Eastfield, Steven Cooper, Joseph
Porter, Babar Luck, Attila The Stockbroker and David Rovics amongst others. My
favourite had to be my birthday bash (Butlerfest 2007!) at The Queen’s Head,
Belper in Derbyshire. It was back in September with a line-up featuring
Eastfield, Steven Cooper, Paul Carter and Phil Doleman. It was a great night and
every act was excellent to watch. My latest CD (Protest Folk Singer) was made
available by the Four Dogs Music on-line mail order service and received reviews
in Rock ‘N’ Reel magazine and The Morning Star newspaper amongst other
places. Airplay on the radio has been very welcome too with Manchester based
Under The Pavement show on ALLFM 96.9FM and Into The Buttercup show on
Bradford’s BCB 106.6FM both playing songs from the CD and maybe there’s more
airplay that I haven’t heard about? The Into The Buttercup show was especially
appreciated and welcomed as Rob Martin, the host of the show played Don’t Vote
BNP which was a brave and bold thing to do. I know other stations haven’t
played it through not being able to side with any political view. David of Under
The Pavement had said he would love to play the song but didn’t want to have
to follow the song with an announcement along the lines of ‘this of course is
Chris Butler’s view and not necessarily the views of ALL FM’ or worse,
having to balance the view out by giving air time to BNP supporters! I liked
Rob’s approach though, he thought it needed to be said and was happy to play
the song on his show, regardless of upsetting any nasty little Nazis! I was able
to perform in the studio on the Under The Pavement radio show too which was a
fantastic opportunity. CB pin-on badges were made available for the first time
last year featuring the Protest Folk Singer CD cover and the Live CD cover. Ask
about them at the gigs if you wish to get one before they sell-out. Hey, and
let’s not forget the flyer for the gig I appeared at which makes a brief
appearance on The Day The Country Died DVD documentary! On a more personal, more
important and less musical note, we acquired two kittens (Jessie and Darcy)
which were certainly a highlight of the year for me. I had a change of day job
last year which has made life very different also.
Looking back on the culture of 2007, my own personal favourites were:
Live Performances: The best gig I went to for sheer entertainment value and because I got to see a living legend was Dolly Parton at Sheffield’s Hallam FM Arena. This was completely worlds’ apart (and so maybe unfair to compare) with some great performances by Steven Cooper, Eastfield, Danbert Nobacon, Chumbawamba, Babar Luck, Inner Terrestrials, Paul Carter, David Rovics, The Re-Entrants and Joseph Porter. I also enjoyed a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Merry Wives Of Windsor- The Musical too!
Music: Best release of the year in my opinion was Danbert Nobacon’s The Library Book Of The World along with Eastfield’s Urban Rail Punk, Eastfield’s Loadhaul To Lhasa, The Merry Wives Of Windsor – The Musical soundtrack and Oysterband’s Meet You There.
TV: I never seem to watch much TV (apart from news and football) and usually miss anything that I intend to watch anyway and therefore hardly a good TV critic but I did enjoy The Trial Of Tony Blair, The Street and Cranford.
Film: I didn’t see a lot at the cinema during 2007 either though did think This Is England was good and The Day The Country Died documentary was worth a look if you liked your political punk rock during the 1980’s.
Books: I rarely get to read books as soon as they are published and so whilst they may not have been published in 2007, I enjoyed reading The Damned Utd by David Peace and Chronicles Volume One by Bob Dylan. I will read any newspaper I come across though never believe the information to be fact and recommend you read Rock ‘N’ Reel magazine if you like good music with good attitude.
There,
that’s 2007 and onwards into a cultural 2008…
I’m
still getting lots of queries regarding me not yet having a myspace website.
Myspace, should there be anyone out there still not in the know, is a website
where people can create their own sites, put on their details and add music and
videos etc. You can also add ‘friends’ to your myspace site when other
myspace users get in touch. In theory, some of it is a good idea, and just about
every musician I know has created their own myspace website. I thought about
setting one up when I first heard about them but a couple of things put me off.
Firstly, I prefer the website I already have. This website has all the details
and info that I wish to have without the messages, adverts and long list of crap
that appears from ‘friends’ on myspace sites. To me, myspace sites look more
like chatrooms with all those messages and pleas from strangers to become
‘friends’ and that just isn’t for me really. I think Chumbawamba’s song
Add Me from their latest CD, The Boy Bands Have Won sounds a little too close to
the truth for me. I don’t doubt the usefulness of such sites in publicising
events or campaigns etc but personally find them a chore to read and of little
interest most of the time. Also, I have a really slow internet dial-up facility
which can take around 10 minutes to even look at a myspace website, never mind
update one myself and so I didn’t think I’d ever get round to updating one
should I set one up. I know myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch which doesn’t
make it appealing to me either though know little else about that fact and with
not having a myspace site, I don’t feel the need to search out any more
information on this. I am not knocking any users of myspace at all: I’ve got
some very dear friends who have myspace websites (none of which are like
characters in Chumbawamba’s Add Me song thankfully!) and they’re always on
at me to use all the technology available and drag myself into the 21st
century too but for now, I will leave the myspace culture for those who wish to
use it…
2008
then and a trip to the CAMRA winter beer festival at Derby Assembly Rooms. A
great day out enjoying the various beers on offer and we finished with a nice
Belgian beer before moving on to a few pubs near to where I live before heading
home. A lovely day and thanks to Mat, Keith and Gordon for being perfect
drinking partners. I also went to a couple of Premier League football games for
the first time this season during January. The first game was between Derby
County and Wigan Athletic at Derby’s Pride Park, though you could have been
fooled into thinking it was Championship league football with the quality not
being the best I’ve seen. Plenty of established Premiership and international
players were on the field (Robbie Savage, Andy Todd, Laurent Robert and Danny
Mills etc for Derby and Chris Kirkland, Mario Melchiot, Titus Bramble, Kevin
Kilbane, Emile Heskey and Marcus Bent etc for Wigan) but nobody seemed like
scoring until Antoine Sibierski came on for Wigan during the last 10 minutes of
the game and scored with his first touch to make the game 1-0 to Wigan. At the
end of January I saw the Derby home game against Manchester City. Derby played
better against Sven Goran Eriksson’s City side who were not having a bad
season. There were chances on both sides and the game ended 1-1 which was a fair
result I thought. Again, there were plenty of experience on the field with
Robert Earnshaw turning out for Derby and such names as Darius Vassell, Emile
Mpenza, Elano and Martin Petrov playing for City. I went to both games because
of my day-job though it’s always nice to see some live football whether
working or not.
My
first gig of 2008 was in mid-January and was a return to the last venue I played
in 2007; Sawyers in Kettering. What should have been a line-up featuring The Men
They Couldn’t Hang became (due to a family bereavement within the band and
them having to pull-out from the gig) still a great evening featuring Eastfield
and Bleeding Hearts as well as myself. It was my 16th gig with
Eastfield as well as 11 gigs with Jessi Adams playing solo. I included a new
song in the set called Sinners and the song, Strike! which I hadn’t performed
for a couple of years (January 2006 at Hebden Bridge Trades Club to be
precise!). The song Sinners is about religion and about being able to question
religion. Whilst laws to stop the incitement of religious hatred can be a good
thing in teaching respect and tolerance for different beliefs and cultures,
it’s also a slippery slope that can end with not being able to even criticise
religion. Through my day job recently, I have been to a catholic mass on
occasion (I’m not catholic) and didn’t always agree with what I heard. Also,
whilst I’ve never read the Quran, I wouldn’t have thought that suicide
bombing is approved of in it. But then it is sometimes how people interpret
books like the bible and the Quran which leads to intolerance and blind
stupidity. All faiths have to be challenged, criticised and pulled up on issues
when what they preach hurts the people they speak out against and sometimes it
can be the most vulnerable who are outcast or treated appallingly. Divorce,
homosexuality, abortion, contraception, co-habiting, pre-marital sex, alcohol
and re-marriage are all frowned upon amongst certain faiths… So many sins…
and so much guilt and hatred passed on to anyone daring to contemplate anything
from that list. I’m guilty of at least 3 of those myself and quite honestly am
not asking for anyone’s forgiveness. Going back to the song itself, it’s
sometimes difficult when writing a new song as a solo performer as I’ve no
other people to bounce ideas off with. I write a song and then perform it live
to see what the reaction to it is like. Lyrics, tune, tempo, key etc can all
change from gig to gig until I’m comfortable or happy with the song. Sometimes
the song doesn’t get performed again if my first performance of it isn’t at
all what I was hoping for. This could be because I’m not as good a musician,
songwriter or performer as I would like to be: The song that comes out when I
open my mouth or strum my guitar doesn’t always live up to the idea I have in
my head or the song I put down on paper. Anyway, as a ‘work in progress’, it
was nice to perform and would be finely tuned (or more likely re-written!)
before the next performance of it. I came to play Strike! after a conversation
I’d had earlier that day. It was performed without any rehearsal and
surprisingly, I remembered all the words and it was fun to close my set with a
song that hadn’t been performed for so long. My full set was: Don’t Come
Back, ‘Phone In Well, See You In Hell, Sinners, Celebrity Bus Crash, Don’t
Vote BNP and Strike! Bleeding Hearts we’re on next and it was the first time
I’d seen or heard them. I enjoyed their folk/punk style and thought they
sounded like an angrier version of the Levellers. Unfortunately, I didn’t get
a chance to see all of Eastfield’s set due to having a train to catch to Derby
but what I did see was excellent. Mick Murphy’s Dirty Bar, Faredodging, Humour
Exclusion Zone and Rugeley Crimestoppers were some of the songs I did see them
play before my exit to the station. Many thanks to Trina and the rest of
Eastfield for having me on the bill. It was nice to see Rich and Lianne of
Sawyers again, Dan the sound man, Paul and Loretta and even more new friends
made at another great Sawyers gig.
My
next gig was in February and unbelievably, was another in Kettering at Sawyers!
My 3rd in a row there and my 9th over all appearance
there. I could be in danger of people thinking I’m their resident house band
but hey, that’s no bad thing. I’d happily play at Sawyers every week; such
is the welcoming atmosphere that’s always received on arrival from Rich and
Lianne, the pub regulars, gig organisers (namely Trina Eastfield) and sound/PA
expert Dan. It’s like one big family and I’m always treated with such
kindness that I don’t think I’ve ever received at any other venue. This gig
was a surprise birthday gig for the landlord, Rich. It had been difficult to
keep the information from Rich and by the night of the gig, he’d obviously
guessed that there was going to be some live music on but he still didn’t know
who was appearing until the acts arrived on the night itself. The line-up was
The Re-entrants, Paul Carter, Dik Guru and myself. All acts being acoustic on
what would normally be the Wednesday night acoustic night at Sawyers. I drove
the 150 mile return trip from Derbyshire to Northamptonshire as Phil of The
Re-entrants had drove for the gig we did at Sawyers in December 2007. With dense
fog on the way down this time as well as on the way home (Ian Re-entrant is sure
that Kettering is covered in fog at all times having only seen it in dense
fog!), we arrived at Sawyers a bit later than scheduled but it was still early
evening and with time for me to say hello to my good friends Trina, Bambi and
Oddo from Eastfield and give birthday boy Rich our best wishes while he was
still sober! It was a fantastic night, very relaxed and all performed with a
sense of fun as Rich enjoyed a night off from behind the bar to chill out, enjoy
the music and of course, drink beer! Dik Guru was first to perform with his
adult humour, strong language and acoustic guitar delighting the audience. It
was my 2nd gig with Dik and he was well received by the crowd. Next
to perform was Paul Carter. It was my 4th gig with Paul who gave a fine
performance and was a tough act to follow. My fave song of Paul’s on the night
was, for its sheer simplicity, I Can’t Find It. Great stuff Paul. I was next
to perform and as always, it was a complete pleasure to play in Sawyers again. I
tried the song Sinners again and left Strike! in the set again too and my full
set was Sinners, See You In Hell, ‘Phone In Well, Tony Says Good Luck,
Celebrity Bus Crash and Strike! The Re-Entrants ended the evening’s
entertainment with a set of cover songs which again went down a storm with the
Sawyers crowd. It was my 3rd gig with them (as well as 20 performed
with Phil solo) as more unlikely artists were covered including Europe, David
Bowie, Thin Lizzy, Duran Duran and Amy Winehouse with just a couple of ukuleles
for backing. We left the venue very late indeed for the drive home as the party
continued and people drank far too much for a mid-week night! Thanks to Trina
for some great organisation, Lianne and Dan for everything, Bambi, Oddo and
Keith for the support, Phil and Ian Re-entrant for being marvellous travelling
companions and of course to Rich for helping to make it a really fun night on
his birthday.
Updates
on the website since last time are of course on this page (March 2008 update
including the Youtube video at the bottom of the page of me live at Kettering
Sawyers on 25/01/2008), Fave Things page, Pictures page and the Gigs page. As
always, thanks for the interest and if I don’t speak to you before, the next
updates will be in June.
Love,
Chris.
Above: CB live at Kettering Sawyers
25/01/2008
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Chris Who? Fave
Things Recordings
Links Tallington 2006
Gigs Pictures
Reviews Wasted
UK 2006
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(c) Chris Butler 2008
visitors since March 2004