It was Layla’s birthday this week, which reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to write about for ages.
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| Pirates and Pirates and Pirates supported by Hattie Hatstar |
Once upon a time, in a field not too far away… Merton Farm in Canterbury, to be precise. At Lounge on the Farm. In the year two thousand and ten. The greatest band ever were formed!
We were at the festival for what I think was the second of the three years I went for, and Lynsey had started running a Quarterhouse Stage. Unfortunately they had a couple of performers drop out and were looking for replacements.
Stefan, probably fuelled by a beer or two at the time, suggested to her that he and I – who had never played music together previously – could fill a slot on the bill.
Me, probably fuelled by a beer or two at the time, went along with this and suggested that it would be a really great idea.
Lynsey, probably fuelled by whatever her choice of beverage is, was somehow convinced that we would actually be able to put on a performance and gave us a slow on Sunday afternoon, giving us a day and a half to get our shizzle together.
The first thing any band needs is a name. Then you know what sort of band you’ve got. There was a band playing at the festival called Cats and Cats and Cats. I had seen them earlier and thought they were quite good. Afterwards, I had nodded at one member of the band assuming that they were someone that I knew. They looked at me weirdly. I then realised that I knew who they were but that had no clue who I was.
Someone, I think James most likely, was telling me a story about how they had almost called themselves Parrots and Parrots and Parrots. “Pirates and Pirates and Pirates?” says I. “That’s an awesome name, let’s take it.” So we did.
We managed to borrow an acoustic guitar. Neither Stefan nor I can sing. He told me I had to as the guitar was right handed, and with me being left handed, this was the logical way to arrange the band. I had never been encouraged to sing in a band before. Mainly because people I’ve been in bands with have heard me sing.
This gave us Saturday to write songs. We had to borrow Dan Light’s diary so I could write lyrics down, and we sat around the campfire mainly writing songs about things that had happened to us over the course of the festival.
We wrote a song called No Cash Back about how the bars on site weren’t giving any cash back so James had to walk into town to get to a cash machine. We wrote another called Hobo Joe about a guy called Joe who Dan Light found sleeping in his tent one evening. There was The Ballad of Dan Light about Dan Light graffiti which had been appearing mysteriously on site and which we had absolutely nothing to do with.
On Sunday morning, it was Layla’s birthday. This is why I remembered that it was the 6th anniversary of the formation of the band when it was her birthday. Mainly because we then wrote a song about her birthday called Layla’s Birthday. It lasts 10 seconds and has the lyrics “Layla, it’s your birthday, but we’re not celebrating.”
For her birthday, Sophie had bought Layla a toy xylophone. This meant that she instantly made it into the band. Ben wanted to be in the band, and we wanted him to be in the band because he could actually sing. So he got in too. I seem to recall we also bought some sort of whistle from the Siesta tent for him to play as well. The drummer from Stefan’s actual band was at the festival. Stefan grabbed him, some saucepans and wooden spoons and he became our drummer.
We rehearsed briefly as a full band and then at 4.30pm we were unleashed upon the unsuspecting world. We had been spreading the word a bit, and as it’s quite a small festival we actually managed to get maybe 30 or 40 people we knew come along to watch us which I was extremely impressed with, especially as we had been talking down the band all weekend.
When we finished playing Hobo Joe, we discovered that Joe was actually a friend of a friend who had come along to watch us and that he was actually quite embarrassed by what had happened.
During the Ballad of Dan Light, Dan himself held up big bits of card which he had taped on True and False, to coincide with whether the statements about him were true of false. Attempting to “sing” the lyrics to the song whilst he was doing so is one of the funniest and most enjoyable memories that I’ve got.
We finished with a song called Thank You Lynsey thanking her for letting us play her stage. We added in information about things about her that Sophie had informed us about so we could embarrass her slightly, before legging it from the stage.
A few months later, Stefan came over to my house and we attempted to record the songs. There is a link below, but they are not as good as the originals, especially as they are lacking several instruments and I attempted the drums by filling a container with coins which really doesn’t work.
Although the band never officially split up, they have been on an indefinite hiatus. Perhaps there will be a reunion one day. Judging from how many times my old band have had reunions, nothing can be ruled out.
The band:
Stewart Cork – “singing”
Stefan Birkett – guitar
Ben Bailes – vocals, whistle and pretend trumpet
Layla Silbert – toy xylophone
Tom the Drummer – pots and pans
Songs from Dan Light’s Diary:
1 No Cash Back
2 Ballad of Dan Light
3 Hobo Joe
4 Piracy Funds Terrorism
5 Hotter Than The Med
6 Nice Guys Finish Last
7 Layla’s Birthday
8 Thank You Lyndsey
A version of these songs can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/pirates-2/sets/songs-from-dan-lights-diary
