'Tis The Season...

….to be poorly! Having succumbed to the joys of bronchitis and sinusitis, my run up to Christmas has been far from jolly. That said, a couple of days in bed and some strong antibiotics seem to be doing the trick, as does my mum’s stew, the recipe for which has seen me through illnesses since early childhood.

Besides great stew, another benefit of being under the weather is the chance to catch up on daytime TV. This I have done enthusiastically – Deal Or No Deal, Escape To The Country, Countdown and This Morning have all received my undivided attention in the last few days. However, one programme in particular has been an absolute revelation, and dare I say an education. Loose Women has given me an insight into a world I knew existed but had never ventured to explore beyond its periphery. I now have intimate knowledge of the opinions, desires, joys, frustrations and expectations of a group of C-list celebrity ladies of a certain age, and feel I am a better, more rounded individual because of it.

What I found particularly insightful (and surprising) is Janet Street-Porter’s thoughts on Nativity plays in primary schools. Following a recent shocking and disturbing news story of a school who dared to modernise the traditional story, Miss Street-Porter’s outrage was on display for all daytime telly-addicts to witness. ‘It's a disgrace for schools to mess with the nativity story? Putting a spin on the birth of Christ surely constitutes the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it.’ So vehement was her diatribe that I nearly spilled my stew.

Now, nobody mourns the decline of Hark The Herald Angels Sing and Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem more than I do. However, the likes of JS-P should put themselves in the position of those teachers upon whose shoulders rests the responsibility of making this year’s Christmas production a success. Christmas is a wonderful time to be in a primary school, but it’s also incredibly hard work to juggle all that the end of this long term brings. One particular pressure is how to take a story that has twelve characters, only one of them female (maybe two if you give the innkeeper a wife) and present it in a way that allows a hundred children to have their moment in the spotlight, under the often critical eye of parents who want to see their own little star shine brighter than the rest. If the Nativity story needs to be tweaked a little (or indeed a lot) to do just that, then so be it and good luck to you.

If I ever finish my antibiotics in time to have a drink this festive season, I shall be toasting all you wonderful teachers who continue to keep musical and dramatic performance at the fore of your children’s experiences at school…..however you choose to do it.

Happy Christmas, and cheers!

Soul Music

I’m a bit of a youtube addict.  I’ve recently enjoyed late nights with The Who at the Isle of White, Led Zeppelin at Maddison Square Garden, Hendrix at Woodstock and Radiohead at Glastonbury. Drama-wise, the gripping ‘This Is England’ and the outrageous ‘Rita, Sue And Bob Too’ have each ensured that the i-pad was not a wasted purchase.

However, although thoroughly entertaining, each of the above has only served to contribute to, rather than relieve the bouts of insomnia during which they’ve been viewed. There’s a certain (for want of a better word) edge to them that leaves me in a slightly less-relaxed state of mind than before I clicked ‘play’.   

Where’s this leading? Well, last weekend I found myself part of a whole-family outing to Kilworth House Theatre in rural Leicestershire, to see their current production of ‘The Sound Of Music’. Confession time: my name is Andrew Oxspring and I’m a fan of musical theatre. There, I said it. I’m sure many old friends and acquaintances who know of my deep love of all things ‘heavy’ and ‘rock’ will find this amusing, but I’m happy to stand up and be counted. As the Mother Abbess majestically hit that high F# at the end of ‘Climb Every Mountain’, the whole place erupted, and I swear there was not a dry eye (or seat!) in the house. The Von Trapp kids were as engaging as those fostered by Julie Andrews, and I happily swallowed every sugary line they delivered. The car journey home was a reprise of ‘My Favourite Things’ and ‘Do Re Mi’, and my youtube activity that night before bed comprised ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ and ‘Something Good’ - it was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks.

My soul is replenished and balance has been restored………and more importantly I now feel I’ve earned a few browny points to cash-in against some youtube time with Motorhead live at Hammersmith.

Waxing lyrical

I’ve always been a bit immature. My first school report, written in the days when teachers were allowed to say what they really thought, highlighted the fact that I needed to ‘grow up’ - I was 5! Then in year 4 (the 2^nd year juniors for those of you of a certain age) it was my ‘idiocy’ during hymn practice that was noted, in particular a ‘fondness for changing the lyrics to songs in a most inappropriate way.’

The first public dressing-down I received was for a sophisticated change of lyric of the hymn ‘To Be A Pilgrim’ (or ‘Pillock’ as we’d re-christened it), in which the line ‘…his strength the more is…’ was, with razor sharp wit, changed to ‘…his strength the moron…’ I was duly hauled out to the front of the assembly hall by a fuming Mrs Chapman, who ridiculed my hard work and asked me what I supposed God thought of my ‘silly billy tomfoolery’! My punishment was, of course, to sing the whole song properly, as a solo.

As the years passed I honed my skills, managing to change the words to most of the hymns we sang, so as to make reference to every conceivable bodily function in place of glorifying God’s name. At secondary school, however, it did come back to bite me, at the hands of my friend Neil Copp, my co-author of many an unmentionable re-working of well known lyrics. We’d always had an adolescent snigger at ‘...Offspring of the virgin’s womb...’ from ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’, but during the school carol service of 1982, that line was to become the source of much personal embarrassment. In a piercing, still-unbroken voice, audible to the entire congregation, he sang ‘…Oxspring of the virgin’s womb..!’ From that year on, until I left school, there wasn’t a single ‘mate’ who, as the seasonal occasion arose, passed up the opportunity to bellow this out to my utter humiliation.

But time is a great healer, and I now look back with affection at this, and at all the instances when we creatively embellished the rhymes of proper songwriters. I suppose it was the first tentative step to becoming a writer myself. So maybe instead of frowning upon children’s giggly attempts to make their friends laugh by finding inappropriate humour in the lyrics of others, we should encourage it. Who knows, maybe there’s a budding Tim Rice or Oscar Hammerstein currently cutting their teeth on today’s popular assembly songs in a similar manner. Teachers, keep an ear out during singing practice, and should you discover such protégés, stick them on your ‘gifted and talented’ register.

PS. On completing my new jubilee song (available to download from the Edgy website on May 8^th) I’ve wimped out, and removed the phrase ‘Elizabeth Regina’ from the lyric. I fear the temptation would be too great for the silly-billies, and I don’t want to get anyone into trouble!!!

It's raining beats! Hallelujah! It's raining beats....

Hello! Welcome to this latest little vehicle to help keep you up to date with what's happening in Edgy-world! Blogging is a new experience for me, and I'm suffering a little uncertainty as to where to pitch this first effort. I guess you're aware from our website what's currently 'hot off the press', so instead of weighing you down with more marketing nonsense, I thought it would be a nicer experience to share with you some of the lighter moments of my working day.

Although it's the end-of-year/leavers' musicals that are currently flying off the shelves, all creative efforts are now turned to our 2012 Christmas releases. As I'm sitting in my cosy studio at the bottom of the garden, adding finishing touches to our latest set of seasonal songs, I'm looking out at a newly-turfed lawn, thankful for the torrential downpour that seems to be breathing life into grass which, because of Anglian Water's hosepipe ban, has been denied nourishment for nearly a fortnight!

Well, it seems the benefit of heavy rain is two-fold. Not only are my frustrations horticultural, they are musical too. I'm forever in search of interesting hi-hat patterns to add to drum tracks when recording, and have spent most of this morning dissatisfied with what I've come up with. Inspiration, however, has been literally heaven-sent. As rain turns to hail, the drumming on my studio window provides me with the perfect syncopated, swung-quaver pattern with which to embellish the song! The spirit of Keith Moon presents itself at the most opportune moments!

So, in the slightly mis-quoted words of those gloriously camp divas, the Weathergirls, 'God bless Mother Nature, she re-arranged the sky, so that each and every writer can find the perfect.....beat!" Hmmm, that one's definitely a 'work in progress'!

Andrew.