The Hat has a favourite Tom Waits song called 'The Piano Has Been Drinking' wherein the line "the ashtrays have retired" has always rung rather too many realistic bells. As a young feller playing Meade Lux Lewis, Fats Domino and Jelly Roll Morton in doubtful smoke-filled bars to disinterested drinking punters, The Hat acquired some useful knowledge (often by osmosis) that would stick with him, along with the layers of nicotine, for decades - and the point at which the ashtrays gave up was usually the moment when the piano lid was due to get closed.
Now here's some useful knowledge. A casual chat to a band member recently reminded me that there is still an unwritten rule amongst many gigging musicians that you should never stop playing, whatever is going on around you. We may all have seen the chicken wire coming down when Things Got Loud in The Blues Brothers movie, but many years ago at the then jumping, but now long gone, Wimbledon Palais there was no wire curtain but there was a tacit 'keep on playing' rule. Before the Beatles, Stones, Floyd and Who appeared there, it was not unusual for Hells Angel fights to break out, complete with bicycle chains and bottles. The reasoning was that if you stopped playing, the absence of music would make matters worse, people would leave and eventually the police would arrive – and that would not be good for business....so turn up the volume and don't miss a beat. I seem to recall that occasionally it got a bit tricky when combatants used to fall into the piano. Not good for The Hat's cool left hand..
There are some other good reasons to keep on playing and singing apart from the fights, drunks and bottle throwing - indeed I can remember Sham 69 and Clash gigs where bottle throwing was almost compulsory. Most common is the cock-up moment, where for some reason, you lose your way, play the wrong chords, notes, key...er....number...(forget which town/country you are in) and it all goes pear-shaped. Yes, yes, it happens to us all. The Hat has a quite well known English musician friend who started his Derry gig with 'Hello, Londonderry'! Not a smart move. Of course, many blues gigs are in small venues or pubs and what every blues musician gets to know very quickly is that what for you may possibly be the End of the World and a Flourishing Career probably hasn't been noticed by a lot of the people out there and the rest are sympathetic to your plight. However, if you stop, you may be in trouble, everybody notices.
Then there is that moment where you realise your lead guitarist has spent too long with Jack D and clearly can't remember how to get out of his solo. This is usually a job for The Bass Player and his slide-across-the-stage-elbow-to-one-side manouvre. I hear you nodding. There are of course unavoidable hazards – for, example, the dead mic, the broken string, the drummer falling off the stage and the slipping capo. The Hat used to have a capo made out of a three inch wire-cut nail and a strong rubber band. The elastic had an uncanny ability to snap at Key Moments, literally. Keep on playing, nobody noticed. Tom Jones said if you forget the words, sing the first verse again and they'll come back. Keep on singing, nobody noticed. Of course, under the beady eye of the camera and Youtube exposure, it is more difficult to shrug it off these days. However, very rarely, the best thing sometimes is to stop, own up and, with a cheery riposte, hope there is an editing machine and blame the first thing you can think of...(the roadie or sound engineers may well have a 'It's My Fault Guv' clause written into their contracts!). Lastly, heaven forbid, should any of this happen to you one dark night, The Hat can recommend that you borrow from Ravi Shankar who accidentally produced the best get-out line many years ago when he said to an over-excited audience "if you like our tuning-up so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing even more.."
Well, the year has barely got up speed and already The Hat's in-box is overflowing with a letter from Humphrey Littleton's old pal, our friend Mrs Trellis of North Wales. Her concern this time is about my New Year's Resolutions. By way of a public service to all my readers struggling with their decisions of the Midnight Moment, I thought it would help if I let you and Mrs T know that....I didn't get The Lycra or the Pointy Hat, I didn't even get The Bike...but The Sideburns are coming along fine, just fine..
Pip Pip!
The Man in The Hat