Truly penniless

My good friend Britt Ustler shared this photo the other day, not the clearest image you’ll ever see but the only lasting memento I have of the tour we did with Micah P Hinson in the spring of 2004. I was supposed to be finishing my degree at the London School of Economics at the time but I think I was already looking at the future politicians and financiers that surrounded me and realising I wasn’t one of them. I opted to go on a tour where I was a part of the bottom of the bill act in a string of venues that seated fifty to a hundred people. There were two acts above us and I can’t for the life of me remember anything about them other than Steve Brown played keyboards in one of them and let me play his Fender Rhodes after establishing I wasn’t a complete oaf. Micah was being paid fifty English pounds per gig and from that he gave me…nothing. Not even a drink. Okay I’m being unreasonable. I distinctly remember after the Nottingham gig he bought everybody except me a drink then noticed my chagrin. He came up to me and did a little speech about how he wanted to give me something for all my efforts and how he wasn’t making much money and it was just a token of his appreciation and blah blah blah. He proceeded to reach in his pocket and offer me £3.50 in change which was a bit of a kick in the balls. I’d used all of my overdraft and hit the limit on both of my credit cards, I didn’t have enough money to eat or pay my rent and he was offering me the change from his round. Did I throw it back at him? No, it was just about enough for a pint so I spent it gratefully.

That moment puts in a nutshell the whole Micah experience. I poured all the love, soul and creative force I could muster into something because I believed in it so strongly. We all did that and none of us took a penny for it, I doubt Micah or his label have ever really fully appreciated that. They exploited us but I suppose, in all honesty we let them. We knew something important and great was happening and we had to help. We made an album that I can still barely get through without feeling like my heart will burst and I’d have given anything to make another ten like it. Micah moved on over and over again finding other dewy eyed gangs of suckers to swallow his tortured and penniless broken troubadour horseshit. He carried on being good and the records he made were always decent but he never had it quite so good as when the Earlies carried him on their many shoulders. So let’s take a moment to thank Nicky Madden, Richard Young, Alex Berry, Sara Lowes, Gareth Maybury, Tom Knott, Semay Wu, Susan Eames, Henry Da Massa, Giles Hatton and John Mark Lapham for their services to the sound of heartbreak. And yes, let’s thank Christian Madden too. Totally unpaid and barely credited but somehow richer for the experience. I still think Beneath the Rose is one of the best things I’ve ever played on and whenever I hear Semay’s cello on The Day that Texas Sank to the Bottom of the Sea my eyes sting and my legs weaken. There’s one of the first brass section outings of Nicky, Gaz and Tom Knott on Stand In My Way, glorious multidimensional chaos and a sign of things to come. And whenever I listen to the duet vocals of a 21 year Sara Lowes on I Still Remember, quivering ever so slightly with nerves before bursting out into layered angelic harmony, I can barely breathe. If I’d have been paid the money I deserved I’d have pissed it up the wall immediately but these musical moments that I’ll cherish till the day I die will pay me back more and more with each passing year. So go on, listen to Micah P Hinson and the Gospel of Progress today. Let’s forgive and let’s never forget.