The full set was:B Grade Underwear
Saddest Lights
Sofa Bunny
Steve
I could never take the place of your man
George W Bush
Forecourt Loving
When your Girlfriend asks you if you're gay
Yuki
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The full set was:Once again, the combination of our banter, relaxed vibe and high standard of playing meant we won the crowd over. It wasn't perfect by any means, we spoiled both 'Roboslut' and 'I could never take the place of your man' by playing them too slowly, and not only did this spoil them, it meant we overran to the extent that we had to drop crowd favourite 'Miss Friel'. But overall we were very happy with our performance, and we sold seven CDs. Moreover the 2 new songs were hits, especially 'Forecourt Lovin' which went down a storm and seemed to have the potential to be one of the all time great Shorties songs. It seemed a shame we hadn't recorded this gig, but we were greatly looking forward to laying down this song in the studio.
Above Right: Liam and Stuart on Sofa Bunny Below: The band in full flow : October 24th
Meanwhile, I had to leave the gig early as I had a long journey home and so I asked Ravi to collect our payment from the venue. Sadly he forgot! He offered to pay out of his own pocket but the promoters were happy to pay us next time we did a gig for them (which turned out to be January).
Meanwhile, I had been toying with the idea of making a documentary about the band for some while. I had audio-interviewed various Shorties through the years, but more and more I was thinking that the band could come to an end at any point. There had been the divisions in the band with regard to Ravi's different view of how things should be done, and I felt it would be a great shame if the whole thing ended, with no record of how we felt about the band and what it was all about. I set about constructing interview questions and approached every member of the Shorties, past and present, to see if they would consent to be interviewed. Amazingly they all agreed, with the initial exception of Ravi, and even he came round when he heard absolutely everyone else had agreed. Saul was first to be interviewed, and then between October 29th and November 7th I taped interviews with Dan, Liam and Mike Ulrich.
Below Right: The only live performance of one of our greatest songs, 'Forecourt Lovin''. Dan sings and strums, while, almost hidden, Liam and Ravi pound away on the djembe.
It was a very busy time as we also had an electric gig scheduled at the Hope and Anchor. November 18th seemed awfully close so we kept largely to familiar songs. We did introduce one new song, Dan's 'Sofa Gofer', and were able to be 'gig-ready' in only two practices, despite the instruments and set-ups involved being entirely different for electric and acoustic gigs.
Between rehearsals I made time to tape an interview with ex-Shorty Mal Tanner on November 13th.
Dan's other band (The Swedish Chefs) were also playing a November gig, theirs being on November 16th. Ravi, Liam and I went along to lend support, and the Chefs were on top form. It was at the Swedish Chefs gig that Ravi decided he wanted us to wear masks at our next gig. Liam advised us to just say 'great idea' and forget about it, as most of Ravi's more bizarre ideas never came to anything. Thus it was that after our rehearsal on November 18th, Ravi's girlfriend arrived ready to take our photos to make into masks. We're a polite bunch and we don't like to put anybody down so we all posed gracefully, but after the rehearsal Stuart, especially, was upset that Ravi really wanted us to wear the masks on stage at the gig. On the night itself everyone except Stuart and Ravi (!!) wore them for one song as, we hoped, a way of showing politeness, while also indicating it was something we felt we weren't really comfortable with. The gig itself was marred by the sound engineer confusing us with a hard rock band, and having the sound levels ridiculously high. Despite our efforts to get him to turn down, the recording shows us playing well, but the subtle nuances of the songs being drowned in a loud wash of sound.
The set list was:
B Grade
All Muddled Up
Longevity : click to watch video
Sofa Gofer
Anarchist
Nazi Dog
Sofa Bunny
Dummy Love
Great Balls Of Fire
Miss Friel
On Thursday 29th November I interviewed Ravi for the documentary which I found a depressing experience. He expressed his anger that we (and he was honest enough to include himself) hadn't worn the masks all gig, and that we hadn't offered to pay his girlfriend for the costs of making them!! He then outlined his vision for the future of the Blackwells which seemed to be wildly divergent from the vision the rest of us had. He again pushed for more rehearsals and the whole experience depressed me so much I had to email Dan the next day to talk it through. I was finding it so hard to work with Ravi by this stage, that I mooted the possibility of my resigning but Dan reassured me that he, Stuart and Saul were all feeling the same way, and that no one person would jeopardise the Blackwells future.
On a happier note, I made a visit to Upper Brailles on December 5th and interviewed Mark Roberts, who was an excellent interviewee and provided some excellent anecdotes and stories about his time with the band. Exactly one week later, I interviewed Katherine Norris. Around this time Collette interviewed me and I interviewed Stuart and the interviews were complete.
Another year had come and gone, but for the first year that I could remember, the future didn't look bright. Although the songs for the new album were sounding fantastic, we had a documentary in pre-production, and had not only played some of our best ever electric gigs, but had also made a successful move into very laid back and mellow acoustic gigs; the year would primarily be remembered among the band members, for the bitter in-fighting that had caused so much hurt. There were still clear divisions within the ranks and the paper-thin facade holding everything together was already showing several cracks. Personally, I was depressed and unable to relax in the rehearsals. As 2001 became 2002 I wondered long and hard whether I would still be in the Blackwells in one year's time.