Love Junkies on Tour: Part 2 Guernsey

Love Junkies - Guernsey 19th June, Dave, Rachel, Marcus & Chris

Did you know the Love Junkies travel? If the last two gigs have been anything to go by this would seem to be becoming a habit. Have van, will travel, etc. And so it was, on a Thursday night in June, driving from St Albans via Folkestone via Lyme Regis to Weymouth and then getting the very early Condor Ferries to St Peter Port on Friday, Dave managed to land the gear on Guernsey. 


All in all a 16 hour driving marathon (with just a few hours kip) to get the gear to quite the most fantastic wedding venue and marquee we've seen. The wedding of Charlotte and Frederic was arranged in advance and booked via our agents, Function Junction. Rozz was unable to do the gig because of her fear of Turboprop aircraft and Hydrofoils (though don't be put off, she's okay with 747's and the Channel Tunnel) so cue Rachel on vocals, our regular dep. The rest of the band lined up as usual.

On what must've been the sunniest weekend of the year, The Love Junkies first visit to Guernsey, the World Cup and a couple of nights in a really sweet little hotel, La Colinette (great food, wow!) well, what a peach of a gig. This was also a fantastic chance to kick our feet up and relax. Well for Dave anyway who took on the driving duties and transported the PA with help from Suzy. Marcus, Chris and Rachel flew over from Gatwick on Saturday. The get in was really helped by one of the friendliest co-ordinator's we've ever met. With the help of his quad bike and roadying skills we were well looked after. Thank-you Simon, from all of us.

The wedding, kicked off finally at 9pm. We were hidden behind a curtain which was dropped to reveal the band and chess board dance floor. Glitter ball as well - nice touch! Bride and Groom got onto the dance floor and we kicked off. Which was just as well as Marcus was holding back a sick bug and had thrown up moments before the gig. Not that we'd shared that, some things are best kept backstage...  he managed to make it through the night though, hats off mate!

Not to mention the French guest, who kept on pestering us to let him 'plug in my iPod'.

So we like Guernsey, actually we really like Guernsey and despite the drive would be more than happy to go back. It wasn't until 1am on Monday morning that Dave finally got to get to bed, but what a chilled weekend. Love it.

Moving the gear by Quad Bike

Sark and Herm from the North coast of the island

Love Junkies on Tour: Part 1 Southern France

Rozz and Jimmy - It's a funny old game...

Ah June, and the first part of our European Sojourn. Chateau De Massillan, near Uchaux, France the wedding of Victoria and Oliver. And did we mention meeting Jimmy Greaves to boot?

The Bride and Groom had seen us at a friend's wedding at the Royal Chace in Enfield a few years ago and had decided that The Love Junkies, just had to be the band, no compromises. Olly's dogged determination that we were the band for him and Victoria for their special day, lead to us being booked two years in advance.

So, the administrative and organisational rollercoaster of booking hotels, hire cars, train tickets, channel crossing, etc began. Although, it's not quite as much work as we make out, there is another dimension to gigging overseas and we are happy once the paperwork is over and we can actually get on with playing and enjoying the opportunity.

Marcus and Rozz brought the gear through the channel tunnel whilst taking a few days holidays for their troubles. Chris and Dave came down on the Saturday via Eurostar, TGV and then hired a car from Avignon. Got some great downtime to explore and enjoy, especially around Orange itself which was marveeeeeellloous and had lots of culture and cool roman stuff, like.

We were really happy to do this one in the end and wouldn't hesitate to get back to France. Even given the long haul. Good luck to Olly and Victoria. You are great people.

Funniest moment: The mayor pitching up to, er, complain about the noise from the Chateaux and receive his baksheesh.

Nicest moment: Meeting a real legend (Jimmy Greaves) and not being disappointed.

Stage at the Roman Ampitheatre, Orange. Note lack of Love Junkies equipment

The venue. Chateau De Massillan, near Uchaux, France

Rozz, Marcus & Chris at the Chateau

Rozz and Marcus, Coke ah...

Just booking in with the Agent, Chris, Orange

Big hand for the band, yaboosucks to the M25

Sunday. It was a day that had we known what was waiting for us, could've struck fear into all of our hearts. As it was though, I am able to write this knowing that our duties despatched, The Love Junkies rose through the storm to deliver.

With Rox and Marcus taking a well earned break in France, Chris and Dave were prompted to come out with a little bit of Dunkirk spirit and put together a slightly amended band line-up. A line-up we should add that not only held its own, but kicked some musical arse.

Rachel Lowrie - cue our new Love Junkies vocal superstar

Cue, new vocal dep, Rachel Lowrie. Armed with a BMus degree and a jazzy, soulful voice Rachel took on the challenge of The Love Junkies set with aplomb and gusto. It didn't go unnoticed that the crowd were chanting her name and begging for autographs after the gig. A fantastic effort Rachel.

With the ever affable Chris, swapping his bass for the now comfortable drum stool and Andee P taking up the sub frequencies, Andy on keys and Dave on guitar were the only five piece members in their regular places. Add to this poor old Andy's malaise from his recent brush with the medical profession and we were up against it.

No matter. We rocked... and souled... and discoed... and, you get the picture.

The venue, Stoke Place, Stoke Poges (cue 'Stokey Poges' comedy references in faux Scots drawl) was round at just the wrong junction of the M25. You know, that junction that is seemingly close but is actually, as proved by the lines of stationary traffic, impossible to reach. For those folk from the south, four hours in traffic was their reward.

Hence, the hassle. For once, and this is so rare, the wedding ran to time. Which unfortunately meant that we were unable to get the equipment up as quickly as we would've liked. So our hats off and gratitude to our newly weds Howard and Kirsty for being so chilled and understanding.

Unsure if this punctuality is now part of a new wedding trend. Hmmm, hard to tell. If so, we will pass the word around the wedding function band grapeline ;-)

Not that the traffic would ever care. Hell, you just gotta hate the M25 sometimes.

Drunk, drunk people in the Temple(ton)

We've been here before - March 2007 if memory serves. Templeton, Roehampton. A Sunday night in May before the Bank Holiday. A multi roomed, multi purpose venue, good for weddings, lots of rooms with quirky nooks and crannies.

Bands get put in the Langdale room, which is for all intents a very large sitting room with a small dancefloor. Okay, but just a little too small. The sort of place to hang a 50" Plasma on the wall if you were that way inclined.

We like the place. The staff are really friendly and looked after us perfectly. Nice meal on arrival - so many thanks all round from the band.

One of those nights though as the DJ laptop kept blue-screening. Eventually it stayed stable long enough for us to play some background music, though we did have to sell our IT souls to the devil for a fix. Chris, was able to come up trumps and deal with an impromptu request from one of the guests to sing Etta James' 'At Last' for the Bride and Groom. All worked out nicely in the end - happy to oblige when we can.

The wedding couple were cool and the evening was largely great. The only thing... drink. Drink, and a little too much enthusiasm from a certain guest. It's difficult as you don't want to dampen spirits - it's a party FGS - but, you know, there are times, you just think "back the hell away from my stuff, you're drunk and you're gonna break something, not only that but you're making yourself look stoopid and embarassing the Bride and Groom".

There's enthusiasm and then there's just plain bad behaviour. So on behalf of the band let me just say, If you really feel that it is your intractable right to grab the microphone away from the singer just as we are starting a song, sing the first few lines of 'Shout' by Lulu, leave your slobber all over the mic hood, whilst you knock the stand onto the floor and pull out some cables as your high heels catch in the cables going to the mixing desk from the monitor. Give plenty of attitude as you are asked nicely to remove yourself. If you feel that this is acceptable, and then also feel that you can extend this same courtesy to the guitarist, and then the bass player, then frankly... well, frankly...

The kindest thing we can say, is that we hope you had a sore head in the morning.

Not impressed.

Flip flops and Saw Doc's

I wouldn't say it's been a harsh winter gig-wise but January and February have been a bit quiet on the wedding front so it was nice to get back into the swing of it again with Charlotte and John's wedding at Brocket Hall.

For couples worried about their guests feet during dancing, here's an idea. Provide flip flops for those ladies (and er, gents) who have had enough of the heels. Even Rozz took her shoes off half way through the gig, though I have to say given the size of the heels I marvel at the fact she can wear them in the first place.

A really nice bunch of people who enjoyed dancing all evening. We thought it a nice touch to put on some classic Irish tunes during the break, you know the Dubliners, Saw Doctors, Pogues etc. Whisky in the Jar, Irish Rover. Maybes we should start diversifying? I wouldn't mind swapping guitar for fiddle every now and again.

Panto season lures away Bass players

Just what is it about bass players and pantomimes? Like proverbial moths, fluttering over to a naked candle they are all drawn by the lure of regular Christmas work. 'tis the season, and all that we suppose. This is all very nice for the bassist, oh yes, nice sit down in the pit, plundering bass lines soundtracking cries of 'He's behind you' and 'oh no he isn't', not to mention all that mularkey with the turns. Spare a thought for your regular gigging band though. We don't stop during Christmas, oh no. Whilst winter weddings are more of a rarity than their summer counterparts, there are still plenty of Christmas parties to be danced at.

So onto our problem, regular bass player Chris, who is the MD and guitarist at the Marlowe, he's off the list. Next dep, Andee Price - well, she's playing bass at the Marlowe too. Steve 'Bass Ace' Hall, he's up in Liverpool, Nathan - nope, doing panto in Hull this year. Gah, boo to them we say. Where's your commitment, eh? Fortunately we have more bass players up our sleeves than you can poke a big pointy stick at. Enter our hero of the day, cute and cuddly Cambridge maestro, Ben Ashby.

This weekend has been a monster with two corporate functions and a wedding. Ben, who also depped with us in November at the Merchant Taylors Supper Dance in Northwood is to quote dear old Ashford & Simpson 'Solid as a Rock'. No messing, straight down to business, did the homework, knew the forms and was a pleasure to have on board. Solid. Sorted. So on behalf of the band we would like to give Ben our Love Junkies 'thumbs up'. Not only that, but he helped with packing up all the equipment and didn't naff off at the earliest available opportunity (those speakers are damn heavy you know).

What have we been up to this last few days, what's caught our eye? Friday's gig at RAF Odiham was a smashing Christmas Party. Of particular interest was the fact that a Triumph Bike around £6k was first prize in the raffle - we didn't ask how much the tickets were but Dave was sorely tempted.

Saturday's wedding of Tammy and Seb was at The Grove in Watford. Lovely hotel, very smart and a tad on the flush side if you know what I mean. Apart from a strange spot of the wedding party storming the stage, taking our instruments and doing that mock rock star stuff (see other blog - ere my mate can play, let 'im have a go'. Nice to see the Bride go straight for the Bass guitar though - interesting, and I for one wasn't going to er, convince her to put it down. High point was getting the groom onto the stage to do a Bongo solo in 'Play that Funky Music'. We don't normally go in for this ritualistic humiliation stuff but he was most insistent - and in the end, he wasn't a bad player - although meanly we did extend the song to about 8mins. LOL.

Finally, yesterday's gig was at Le Meridian, Picadilly through our agents Prelude. The event was great and the co-ordinators really looked after us. However, minus points go to the staff who weren't greatly helpful. A warning to fellow bands, this place has a very long get in involving 2 lifts, numerous stair cases and 3 different (all long routes). You can't go through the front by the way, you have to access from the back, so allow at least an extra hour set-up time. I spent a while yesterday trying to find out if there were any special loading instuctions of which the reply was no, come round the back. Pah!

On behalf of the band we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Is it right to charge to learn a new song?

Here's one that I'm going to put out to the function band community. Is it right to charge for learning a new song for, say a wedding? A song that you're very unlikely to play again and is not in keeping with the rest of your set.

This issue is salient for the hirer also.

The reason I pose this question is simple. I am a little annoyed as I think we've just lost a gig because of this very issue. I will not name names here, but the gig was through our regular agents Function Junction. Now, let me make it clear that we are absolutely not knocking our agents here, We like FJ very much as they have provided us with a good lot of gigs through the years.

We had been booked for a function in April when Paul at FJ asked me if I wouldn't mind talking direct to the client over a few details. This was absolutely fine. I spoke direct to the hirer and it turned out that she wanted us to play a medley of sixties songs (mainly for her parents). This was all fine as we have about a good few sixties songs we can play, at least half an hour - early Rolling Stones, early Beatles, Smokey Robinson, Dusty Springfield, Kinks etc. The phone call was going well until the curve ball came. Can you do a Blondie song for our second dance?

Well, I replied. "We don't actually do any Blondie in our set, but we are prepared to learn this song for you as a one-off request. We do charge £150 for this service though as it is likely that we will never use this song again in our set". The phone went dead for a while, then the hirer came back on a little shocked I think. I added further, "...we are also happy to play any songs you want over the DJ service for free, that would give you a second option". Fine I thought, all bases covered, she left the phone call saying she would let me know but was pleased that we could do most of her sixties requests.

A few days later, we learn (through the agent) that the hirer no longer requires our services for her wedding.

Now, as a matter of course function bands get involved in this sort of thing - it goes with the territory. Some bands are happy to learn and play songs for free, i.e. to learn parts, discuss instrumentation, meet-up, rehearse and then play. Some particular function bands are even happy to just 'busk it'. Others, religiously stick to their set list and refuse to take requests.

The Love Junkies don't really fall into any of these camps and have always looked at this issue from the point of view, that we are prepared to take requests, but if the songs are not in our set and are never likely to be used in our set again, then we will charge a fee to learn them. Are we mercenaries? Are we despoiling the hard fought reputation of our trade?

No, we don't think so.

In fact, we think it's fair that we should get some recompense for learning a new song. We don't like to appear all grumpy though, so let us explain why.

If you look at what goes into learning a new song, a fee to learn of £150 is actually not bad value. If you realise it takes each member a minimum of 2 hours to learn their part, get the form down, practice at home, write the dots, program the patches, etc; and then you factor in travelling to rehearsal, spending an hour or so going over the song; then extras like the petrol to get to the rehearsal, wear and tear and the hiring of the rehearsal studio. We reckon for five musicians you are looking at a minimum of 3-4 hours playing time each (20 hrs), plus venue hire and travelling time (5 hrs). You total this up and £150 is not now so much. In fact after reharsal space hire (around £50) we are lucky to get the minimum wage for our song learning efforts.

So, are we just a bunch of curmudgeons who are out to ruin everyone's fun? We'd like to hear what you think. If you are hiring a band for your event, do you expect them to play any request you throw at them? If you are in a function band, we'd love to hear what your policy is (and decorum please - don't use this as a forum to drum up business for yourselves ;-)