The booze and The blues

 The Booze And The Blues  - Short story by Paul McCann

 This is the story of Brian from Bethnal Green . Someone who knew me , knew him , and he knew that I was writing a book about alcoholics and he wanted to tell me his entire story over  a week . I tried to explain how difficult it was and needed more time to know him so that’s when he told me to tag along with him and Adrian for as long as it took . I somehow remember saying ok and before I knew it the duo became a trio .

Aidan and Brian played the blues . They started doing gigs whenever and where ever they could . They had worked in Dublin , Belfast and London .

Aidan and Brian were originally from Belfast and found that drink helped them forget the situation with the troubles in Northern Ireland . They were also able also to express themselves with their through music and the blues was the medium they choose to do so .

Blues and being Irish was always a tricky combination .

But once you had it they said you were the next big up and coming thing and that you had to go to London to get the break . It was then that you would get a spot, get recognized and get a label . I guess it all sounded great for two musicians from Belfast and so Brian and Aidan left for London with big dreams and soon discovered big suspicions in parts of the city .

Somehow they always managed to stay up on their feet while consuming huge amounts of alcohol. The blues mixed with alcohol made a potent brew and the crowds always flocked in to hear them .

It was as if they had to explain who and what they we were and why they came . Being Irish in London brought its own complications . So after they had kind of self proven who they were and what they were all about people started to listen to their music . They fitted into the scene quite well and they were accepted as part of the place .

Each gig that Brain and Aidan had done grabbed a special moment .They played the blues with their guitars and their alcohol and they went on stage in a rage , sometimes furious in an energy . But once they started playing most of the crowd didn’t really care what part of the world they came from as long as the music was good enough , loud enough . hard enough, that’s what the audience liked because they were young , they worked hard , they lived fast and the music they  enjoyed had to be the same .

Anyhow the Bad Notes were original the band they were with who broke up and some of the sounds from that experience came filtering through .

They sifted some of the original band members and they were going to call the band Bad Attitude, but whatever happened it spurred them on to bigger and better things . More drinks and alcohol more presence on stage They started to trip through different situation with their gigs writing things down , lyrics and stuff .

I remember some of the first times I saw them playing around Hackney. I stood there one night and watched them blending in with the crowd and sensed what was going to happen . It was always there in the pubs ,on the bus , on the street . Where ever you happened to be  . There was always trouble brewing with live gigs . no matter  where you happened to be in London  .

I recall looking up at the roof sometimes thinking about , maybe was it time for me to leave this situation, but suddenly in the back of my mind I thought, you know there’s got to be a story here somewhere with these mixed up crazy Belfast guy’s trying to make music in a place so far away from Belfast where there were right wing racists with baseball bats and the left wing social class situations  . There were people on the stage and in the audience who didn’t know if it was New Year or  New York

The scene itself I had seen many times before and sometimes down memory lane I would think about the troubles in Belfast , sirens  and the bombs and the bullets , trying to duck and weave for cover half the time not knowing if you’d get home or not .

In the darkness of the night sometimes you start to see the light of day.

Recently there had been a lot of trouble around East London with the gangs and there was a lot people getting hurt . Music seemed to filter through all of that situation .Anybody would think we were back here in Belfast , Brian would always say but London was different .

Shut up  for goodness sake and lets just make music . Brian would say .

So at the end of the day we ended up making  some great memories in London and when we ended up looking at some places other than London to go we started to dream and fill our minds with stuff that maybe wasn’t going to happen ,

I watched Adrian and Brian and the boys in the back of the van with a Bad Attitude getting their way into situations that they’d have to fight their way out of and yeah they could play music but they could also fight   They often got caught up at times with money . Getting money from the people who they played gigs for .

Sometimes they got paid and sometimes they never but that was part of the business . Every night was a different show , there was laughter in the crowd . Irish accents . The lights were in your eyes and in your face and the blood fused with alcohol .

There was a serious number of people who got lost in that scene .

The Craic was fantastic and the music started to sound ok ,

We made our way through different pubs and clubs . We got stuck into this situation where the band started to struggle for music to play  but somehow there was always a new song in the key of E to play and we always did the same thing every night . We talked about our dreams and  I started to write down a few notes about Adrian and Brian in the book that I was writing . I had always got in my pocket , a pencil , a piece of paper and  a few coins to boot .

More and more the situation of alcoholism and the book that I was writing

seemed to take shape . People started to present themselves in my life and I knew that these people had to be part of the book , Steamboats , that I was writing .

“You know what ?” I said to Brian and Adrian .

"It’s been really nice to tag along with you for a while and maybe sometime when I get this book finished I’ll come back and look for you .. Keep making music , life’s a bit like that , you’ve got to love the lyrics . You’ve got to play the music as best you can." .

It was time for me to keep going and I said goodbye . Hopefully there will be some new people for me to meet along the way to talk about bad attitudes .and the bad notes .

Somehow within it all music was being made .

The End

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