Mick Pini at the Malt Shovel Tavern, Northampton
15 May 2013
Oh, the joy of it! At last, an euphonical soundscape to
indulge my auditory sensibility! Or putting it in plain english, a damn good
sound mix!
Fresh off a Ryan Air flight from his home in Germany, blues guitarist Mick Pini teamed up
with his old pals Jools Grudgings on keys, Micky Barker on drums, Paul
Pryor on bass (in place of his usual band mate John ‘Bugsy’ Maloney) for a
flying tour of the UK.
OK, take a bunch of quintessential British blues
musicians, equip them with some top quality gear such as a punchy overdriven
guitar, a couple of keyboards piped through a genuine
Leslie speaker cabinet, a warm punchy kit of drums and a bass guitar and rig
full of colour and texture. Now pack them into a small venue full of eager
blues fans, set the levels to around 80dB SPL, pour a few champion real ales, and
voila! You have a cracking good evening of rollicking blues music.
Now I know that not everyone
will agree with me. Some people are not overly enamoured with Mick’s elongated
guitar solos, or his intermittent ramblings about his life. But I am talking
primarily about the sound quality here, and you would be hard pressed to find a
better blues sound mix anywhere in the country. Of course, top class musicianship
follows closely behind.
Blues mentor
Musically speaking, Mick Pini is a bit of an enigma. A blues guitarist who has been around for more years than he cares to admit, he is passionate about the blues. Always ready to give a helping hand to any young musician aspiring to his beloved musical genre, he is a willing mentor, inviting young hopefuls to come and sit in on his set. Krissy Matthews was one such youngster helped in this way by Mick.
Musically speaking, Mick Pini is a bit of an enigma. A blues guitarist who has been around for more years than he cares to admit, he is passionate about the blues. Always ready to give a helping hand to any young musician aspiring to his beloved musical genre, he is a willing mentor, inviting young hopefuls to come and sit in on his set. Krissy Matthews was one such youngster helped in this way by Mick.
As it happened, Mick got
chatting to a couple of very young aspiring blues musicians during the interval. Inevitably, he
invited them stage front during the second set,
parading them in front of the packed room and proclaiming them as future torch bearers of the blues.
"They just need a bass player to form a band" he concluded.
"They just need a bass player to form a band" he concluded.
On the other hand, Mick
bemoans his own misfortune at never having made it big on the blues circuit. It
appears that in these latter stages of his musical career, there is little
sentiment from the British audience for an old blues warrior who is trying hard
to keep his ship afloat.
A thrill to listen to
But tonight Mick had a spring in his step, and looked like he was enjoying being back in the UK again with his old blues buddies. He was upbeat about the new music he had been recently recording, and he enthused about his imminent new website.
But tonight Mick had a spring in his step, and looked like he was enjoying being back in the UK again with his old blues buddies. He was upbeat about the new music he had been recently recording, and he enthused about his imminent new website.
“My current website was designed by a radio
engineer” he announced during one of his little impromptu speeches. “I mean,
the web site is crap, but my old radio works a treat!”
Mick’s guitar style might be considered
uncomplicated and less challenging to master than most, but its beauty is in
its simplicity, with assiduous attention to detail on those finer melodic
interrelationships between the minor and major scales, much like early Peter
Green or Mike Bloomfield. A thrill to listen to, it’s surprising then that not many
guitarists aspire to this style of playing today.
Using a special hand-built Telecaster-styled
guitar in pale blue livery plugged into a saturated valve Mesa Boogie amp, his
guitar sound epitomised those early British blues players, with all the colour,
resonance, grittiness and overdrive so typical of London clubs at the vanguard of the British
blues boom during the 60s. His rendition of “Steppin’ Out” sounded uncannily
similar to Clapton’s version of the instrumental recorded on the famous
Bluesbreakers’ “Beano” album released in 1966.
Mad mad world
Mick’s playing however lacks consistency, and at times he is prone to getting it all wrong. Part of the problem is that he relies a lot on sight checking his fretboard. With a combination of Mick’s degenerating eyesight (I assume) and an inadequate level of stage lighting at the Malt Shovel, he occasionally and unexpected misplaced his finger positioning when moving up and down the neck. Oops! As a result, his playing ranged from the sublime to the farcical.
Mick’s playing however lacks consistency, and at times he is prone to getting it all wrong. Part of the problem is that he relies a lot on sight checking his fretboard. With a combination of Mick’s degenerating eyesight (I assume) and an inadequate level of stage lighting at the Malt Shovel, he occasionally and unexpected misplaced his finger positioning when moving up and down the neck. Oops! As a result, his playing ranged from the sublime to the farcical.
Some of his other onstage antics were similarly
unpredictable. For example, having completed the first song in their set, Mick
decided that he wanted to plug in his wah-wah pedal. Unperturbed by the waiting
assembly, he casually chatted with the band members while he untangled the
leads and proceeded to wire them up.
“Screeeeeeeech” wailed the amp.
Unplugging the leads, he tried again.
“Screeeeeeeeeeech” repeated the amp.
Disposing of the pedal, he nonchalantly announced
to the bemused audience that the next song would be “…without a wah-wah pedal”.
A couple of my friends though that this
interruption was simply downright unprofessional!
“Oh, c’mon” I said “We’re not at the Albert Hall!
Chill out!”
Mick is also prone to breaking into extended and
unannounced soliloquies during the course of the evening.
“They were going through the safety procedures on
the Ryan Air flight this morning” he suddenly began during a rendition of Peter
Green’s “Watch Out”, while the rest of the band continued playing quietly in the
background.
“Here was me thinking about blues riffs, and
they’re telling me how to attach my life jacket” he continued. “LIFE JACKET?
What chance do we have with a life jacket if the plane goes down?”
And on it went, for five to ten minutes.
Not to everyone’s taste, but for me it was quite
entertaining, all part of the mad mad world of Mick Pini.
Top drawer
It goes without saying that the rest of the band
were top drawer.
Hardly renowned for his vocal ability, Mick was in
better voice than I’d heard for years, and to the same degree as his guitar work,
he applied himself with energy and qusto to his lyrics.
Micky Barker first appeared as a replacement drummer for Joachim Greve a few years back, after Joachim abandoned Mick and others by flying off to America in search of better times. Since then, Micky has been Mick’s drummer of choice.
Noted for his minimalist drum kit (a snare, a bass
drum, a high-hat, two cymbals, no toms), Micky relies on his abilities rather
than his instrument to drum up more sounds from his limited kit than most
drummers dare to dream about, despite the latter more often than not using an
endless arrays of toms, bells, cymbals and other paraphernalia to support their
performances. He has the ability to modulate the dynamics and timbre of these
few drums and cymbals by playing them at diverse points on their surfaces with
varying degrees of force. These variations happen at lightening speed, and are
fascinating to watch.
“I’ve come
out of retirement for this gig” Micky protested with more than a hint of irony
during the interval, drawing on a self-rolled cigarette.
More likely a forced retirement than a voluntary
one, I assumed. It seems that gigs are becoming harder to find for
seasoned musicians who dare to expect some remuneration for their labours. So
keeping transport costs to a minimum is paramount, and Mick’s kit fits snugly into the boot of his saloon car.
Jools Grudgings needs no introduction to the Malt
Shovellers, showing up here more often than most in a number of different
bands. Like any musician, Jools can have his good nights and bad. And tonight
he was in particularly good fettle, firing on all cylinders.
Of course, the band and style of music suited him
down to the ground, as Mick’s 60’s-style guitar screams out for a cool
B3-style keyboard sound to complement his playing. Jools was more than happy to oblige, and I
wasn’t the only one enthralled as Jools exchanged solo duties with Mick
throughout the evening.
Now Paul Pryor IS new to me, and as the band
struck up, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him play here before. But boy! Was I in for
a treat!
The bass sound
Many years ago I saw the late John Slaughter perform with his blues band at The Stables venue in Buckinghamshire. This was in the old stable block conversion, well before the Dankworth’s built their new state-of-the-art theatre. That night remains etched in my memory for one reason in particular, the bass guitar sound. I continued to eulogise about it for years afterwards; the transparency in the lower registers, the colour, the tone, the texture. Add to that the absolute cool groove of the bass player(1), eyes closed, into the music, rolling along in the underbelly of the Slaughter blues train. Mesmerising!
Many years ago I saw the late John Slaughter perform with his blues band at The Stables venue in Buckinghamshire. This was in the old stable block conversion, well before the Dankworth’s built their new state-of-the-art theatre. That night remains etched in my memory for one reason in particular, the bass guitar sound. I continued to eulogise about it for years afterwards; the transparency in the lower registers, the colour, the tone, the texture. Add to that the absolute cool groove of the bass player(1), eyes closed, into the music, rolling along in the underbelly of the Slaughter blues train. Mesmerising!
It defined to me exactly what a bass guitar sound
was all about, at least in a blues context, and it set a standard that has very
rarely been equalled since that magical evening all those years ago….until now!
I suppose you’re thinking “what’s the big deal?” A
bass is a bass, right? But you might not hold the same argument when comparing
fine wines, for example, although you may not know the difference between a
classic wine and a bog standard one. And you’re right, most people won’t know
the difference between one bass sound and the next. But I love a good bass
sound, and you can't imagine how gratified I was to hear Pryor's galvanic tone.
One of the abiding features of a good bass sound
is that it doesn’t fight with other instruments across the lower sonic
frequencies. A bassist playing with the
bass drum rather than the snare often creates a conflict, with the bass drum usually winning out. Result? The bass
guitar ends up sounding woolly and muffled.
But Pryor’s bass sat below the other instruments
in the sonic spectrum, at times being almost transparent, and had a full, clear
and rounded signature that complimented all the other instruments, resulting in a super sound mix for the whole band.
Blues suvivor
Well, I suppose Mick Pini is a bit hit and miss. But you know, he’s good fun, he doesn’t take himself too serious, and his heart is in the right place. He could have given up a long time ago, but here he was, still plugging away, playing the blues with all the sprightliness and passion of a young firebrand. For that he deserves a lot of respect.
Well, I suppose Mick Pini is a bit hit and miss. But you know, he’s good fun, he doesn’t take himself too serious, and his heart is in the right place. He could have given up a long time ago, but here he was, still plugging away, playing the blues with all the sprightliness and passion of a young firebrand. For that he deserves a lot of respect.
After all, he is one of our own blues survivors. But sentimentality carries little resonance with British blues fans. If
he had been born in the US,
he’d probably be a bit of a celebrity by now, and might even be invited to the
White House for dinner in recognition of his achievements in promoting roots
and blues music. OK, maybe that's a little bit overoptimistic! But at least some guitar techie would be on hand to sort out his stage gear and make sure the wah-wah
pedal was wired up and working properly before the gig!
Notes
1. It was just recently that I
identified the bass player in question at the Stables gig all those years ago, when I recognised him playing a gig in
the Malt Shovel. Jim Rodford, no less.
Gear
Some of the gear used by the band at the gig.
Keyboards: Studiologic SL-880 PRO keyboard
Nord Stage
Compact keyboard
Leslie cab
Guitar: Hand made Telecaster-styled guitar (with blue paint job
by Jools Grudgings)
Mesa Boogie
amp
Drums: ?
Bass: Musicman Stingray V (5 string)
SWR SM-500
Head
SWR 4x10 Goliath cab
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