The Alcoves II: Punk's Dead And We Don't Have A Van

I was watching the Bill Grundy show when the infamous Sex Pistols interview amazed everyone. This wasn't because I was tuned in to the music sub-culture. There were only three TV channels in England at that time and we'd just got done with tea.

I really had very little interest in music at all. My record collection consisted of a handful of K-Tel compilations (accidentally rendered coolish by T. Rex and The Sweet), and "Remember You're A Womble" by Mike Batt. I was thirteen.

By the time The Alcoves were ready for their first gig, the death of punk had been written on every available Tube station wall and I was spending every lunchtime at Cloud 7 record store. I wasn't usually buying anything, but it was the place to smoke cigarettes and to annoy Dave, the manager, by asking him if he'd got the new single by a band that didn't exist. ("Ummm... Five Snotty Bastards? Fink we're gettin' that in Fursday.")

I had bleached hair, an Anti-Nazi League badge, and a nicotine addiction I would never break.

And a band.

The band, however, did not have what most bands have. A van. In fact at the time of our first show none of us were old enough to hold a UK driver's licence.

One of the recurring themes of The Alcoves is that these kinds of details never seemed to bother us. And I am puzzled by this because for most of my life I have been a worried overplanner. Fortunately, our first gig at The Hoy Club in Harpenden was only a mile from The Francis Residence that served as our back-up practice space (until we discovered why you're not supposed to play a bass through regular hi-fi speakers).

We were sharing the bill with Force Majeure. The plan was to use their amps, but we still had to get the remainder of our gear to the club. This is when we discovered that drums are big.

I don't know where we found the pram. I suppose it might have been at The Francis Residence, but given that Mrs. F. hadn't given birth for fifteen years this seems unlikely. Actually, the thing was so big that it comfortably (even luxuriously) could be called a perambulator. A baby carriage, complete with heavily-sprung suspension and bicycle wheels. Had it been much bigger it would have come with a horse attached.

This really looked like DIY music. The drums were placed in and lashed to the pram with bungee cords and gaffer (duct) tape. As we pushed the contraption past afternoon shoppers the overall effect reminded me of a NASA lunar buggy with a Tosco cymbal radar dish.

When we got to the club, Force Majeure, who were clearly a real band since they wore leather jackets and had no pram, were setting up. We had just liberated the last of the drums when the lead singer flew across the stage. I was extremely impressed with the move until I realized he'd been electrocuted. Through his teeth. And that the power had gone out.

Once his band mates had determined that it was only a minor shock, Roo was dispatched back to The Francis Residence to get 13 Amp fuses.

An hour later the lead singer of Force Majeure was flat on his back again suggesting that maybe we needed an electrician.

Somebody got the wiring sorted out. I know it wasn't me. I was busily becoming acquainted with a hitherto unknown element of being in a band. Stage fright.

I didn't mention this to anyone until a couple of years later in a pub before a Split Here gig. As I'll describe in part... IX maybe, The Alcoves were not long-lived, and I was now playing in Split Here with Olly, Dai Norman and Harvey McGavin. My stage fright was as bad as ever and heightened this particular evening by the prospect of playing to several hundred people at the F.E. college.

As I sipped my beer I looked at Dai and noticed he was defining "a whiter shade of pale." I smiled weakly.

"Why the fuck are we doing this?" I said.

He replied with a smile that was upside down. "No idea."

I later figured out why the fuck we were doing it, but that can wait till part IV.

So we played our first gig. I don't know what we sounded like. For the most part we started and stopped at the same time and people clapped a lot. Those of you who have gone through this process will understand the oddity of being at the center of something that frequently seems to be on the edge of disaster. Or maybe that just reflects my personal ineptitude. But my main recollection of the "feel" of the gig was that of being in a large pram that was bouncing down a grassy hillside. Exhilarating, but with the constant threat that we were about to hit a tree.

The Alcoves

I got thrown back in time today and frankly I'm suffering a touch of psychic whiplash.

Olly, who I have known since I was eleven, sent me an e-mail about a museum exhibit in St. Albans, Hertforshire, where we both went to school. "St. Albans Punk and New Wave '76-'81" is a remarkable collection of material from perhaps the most exhilarating, blurred, confusing, and contradictory period of my life. And it has reminded me how lucky I was to be a teenager when the punk/new wave phenomenon happened.

I've been sifting through the pictures and videos on the Facebook page all day, occasionally shouting things like "whoa, he got fat," "that guy set my hair on fire," and "was it him or his brother who threatened to kill me?" It's going to take a while to metabolize all of it. But one thing that did strike me is that I've never written about how I started playing music in the first place. And since I've spent many more years as a musician than an astrophysicist or a husband or a poker player, this seems to me to be a major omission.

I also realized that one reason I've never organized this personal history is that I wasn't exactly living a granola-and-berries existence, so some of the following "details" may turn out to be vague and possibly completely wrong.

It all started at Paul Newman's house. We'd "taken the afternoon off" from school, partly because Paul had a copy of "Another Music in a Different Kitchen." We listened to it. I knew immediately that I had to be in a band. The only thing standing in my way was that I had never played a musical instrument.

One of the advantages of bipolar type II is that these kinds of obstacles are easily brushed aside. It did occur to me, however, that real musicians would be unlikely to invite me to play with them on the reasonable grounds that I couldn't play anything.

The solution was clear. I needed to form a band. And at some point learn to play an instrument. I noticed almost immediately that a bass had fewer strings than a guitar and didn't require use of the feet, so I opted for that.

My friend Roo Francis could play the guitar. Not well, to be honest, and he tended to stick out his tongue when negotiating an F-sharp minor. Still that was one step ahead of me and he seemed keen.

Olly Sagar was already playing drums in a band. This and the practice space in the basement of his parents' house impressed me greatly. The fact that his brother, Gez, was lead singer of The Toys elevated Olly even further. When I found out he could write songs I realized that I really should learn how to play bass at some point.

I also decided that we needed a woman singer. This was probably something to do with Siouxsie and the Banshees. I wasn't particularly interested in going after that kind of sound, but I really liked the structure of the band name. And "Annie and the Alcoves" had a better ring than "Andy and the Alcoves."

In fact by the time we played our first show we'd dropped "Annie and" anyway, but we had found our singer. Bev Milton. At a party in Harpenden I asked her if she wanted to be in a band. She thought I said "Do you like the home-made wine" (that I'd borrowed from my parents) and nodded enthusiastically.

The Alcoves had been formed.

But I still couldn't play bass.

A bit of research revealed that Marcus Bush, who was a year or two ahead of me at school and had long hair, was selling a bass. Actually the fact that he had long hair may mean he had left school. To be honest I'm not positive he went to my school. But somehow I found out he was selling a bass, so I got on a bus to Potters Bar with thirty-five pounds. Marcus picked me up from the bus stop and took me to his parents' house and the bass.

I wish I still had that bass. I think much of it was home-made or at least substantially altered from its original condition. It was short-scale with a rosewood neck and black body. The scratch-plate was semi-transparent and lime green. It was strung with Rotosound flatwounds. I had no idea what that meant, of course, but that's what Marcus told me.

Marcus then suggested I play around with the bass while he ate dinner. I told him I'd never played one before. He smiled, put on a Slaughter and the Dogs record, said "it's all boxes" and left.

When he came back twenty minutes later I still didn't know what he meant and couldn't play bass, but decided to buy it anyway.

I can't remember our first practice. Our early sets included "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones and The Ramones' "I Don't Care." We also covered a cover: "Denis" in the style of Blondie. We'd been playing it for weeks when I finally realized that Bev didn't know the real words for the French bit and was singing something about an umbrella.

I think the first original we worked up was "Party Day," by Olly. My first contribution was "Dead Cats in Spain."

And I am now going to reveal something about that song that I have never told anyone. The chord progression is... see I still can't read music and don't know much theory and don't actually remember the key we played it in, but... there's a six-semitone (I can count frets) jump that makes the riff sound quite odd and pleasingly punk. Except it was meant to be seven. A nice, melodic fifth. But I worked it out on bass before I'd figured out where all the notes were, wrote it down wrong, and gave it to Roo so he could learn the chords. When he played it I preferred it with the mistake.

Looks like I got side-tracked again. I think I'll leave The Alcoves in the practice space as they get ready for their first public performance. Which involved a pram, several electric shocks, and four encores.

And thanks to everyone who contributed to the St. Albans exhibit and the Facebook page. It's produced a remarkable day.

The Wit And Wisdom Of The Poker Gods

Rather than incur the further wrath of the deities mentioned in the title, let me simply state that I was banging out a very healthy ROI in a certain game offered at Stars when it went poof! Further details below.

Dear PokerStars:

I'd like to congratulate you on what I believe is a first in the history of online poker. By abolishing the SNG Double-or-Nothings you have actually REDUCED consumer choice! Well played! I imagine you were concerned that with all the exciting possibilities you offer, some of us might get dizzy or flee in panic.

You have prominently announced in the SNG lobby that the new Fifty50s are pretty much the same thing as DONs. This is, of course, complete nonsense from a game theoretical point of view. If you could interrupt that jabbering nitwit Negreanu from making abysmal TV commercials he could explain the differences. Although one difference that doesn't need explaining is that, for the turbos, the rake is higher for the Fifty50s than the DONs! Oh man, you've really made my day.

And may we expect the Fifty50s to include Pot-Limit Omaha? Because currently they do not appear to and I would hate for something like this to get overlooked in your latest attempts to revolutionize online poker.

Flushed and royally pissed off,

Kat Martin

A Heretic's View Of The Holdem Hegemony

Every time I hear No-Limit Texas Holdem described as "The Cadillac of Poker," I reach for my water pistol [1]. I imagine the phrase is supposed to communicate the idea of sophistication, luxury, exquisite engineering, performance, and so on. The reality is that Holdem is a stripped-down, simplistic variant of the Holy Game. It has quite a bit of horsepower and torque, but very little finesse. Rather than a Cadillac, I have always thought of No-Limit Holdem as a pick-up truck. Something like a basic-package F-150.

[1] I am a pacifist, but own a small stockpile of water weapons in an attempt to maintain some order in the Kattery.

But for literally billions [2] of players, "poker" and "Holdem" are now synonymous. At poker forums and training sites, all other forms of poker get shuffled (*cough*) off to boards with titles such as "Other Games" and, even worse, "Variations." Indeed one forum where I make a nuisance of myself has a weekly "Variation Night" at which one of the weird games that isn't NLHE is played. It's as if everyone downs poker tools for an evening, so that instead of playing REAL POKER we all bugger about with way too many cards while following rules apparently designed to harsh everyone's mellow.

[2] Despite being born in England, I follow the American convention of using "literally" when I mean "figuratively."

So how did this sorry state of affairs come about? My thorough and totally unbiased research in this area has revealed that the villains are a bunch of fat Texans [3]. These unscrupulous tubbies realized that, in order to separate the average tourist from his (never her; see "Super System I") money in the fastest possible time, they would need to play a game that only took a minute to learn. It's the oldest rule in the book. The Shell Game, for example, would have been a total disaster had it involved twenty-five shells, several beads of varying colors, and rules derived in some cunning manner from the Fibonacci Sequence.

[3] The term "Texas rounder" is assumed by most to be derived from Texans "driving around" looking for sheep to fleece. In fact the etymology reflects the fact that all were corpulent.

I can even offer some anecdotal evidence that supports this hypothesis. Specifically, before the No-Limit Holdem Boot Boys took over card rooms in this and other countries [4], NLHE cash-games were almost unheard of. The limit version of Holdem was played for the eminently practical reason that weak players busted out far too rapidly when playing the no-limit form. A good LHE player could leave his victims standing in their underwear while sympathizing with them about their "rotten luck." The approach of the Fat Texans was to leave their victims naked in the parking lot, sometimes bleeding from head wounds. While the latter makes for better movies, it does very little to encourage customers to return to the felt.

[4] I include Canada in this category despite the ongoing debate, originating with Dave Barry, as to whether Canada is technically a country.

From a personal stand-point, the situation is not all bad. On the one hand, I am somewhat insulted that the Omaha-8 table at The Mirage is invariably the one in the drafty corner, as if it is being cordoned off from the "real poker." On the other hand, its location places it next to a large ashtray and the bathrooms, thereby making it ideal for someone who chain-smokes and drinks half a dozen club-sodas-two-limes-no-ice per hour.

But what does this say about our poker culture and the future of the Holy Game? Are the generations that follow us really going to be condemned to the simplistic, one-dimensional bullying of NLHE? Will the great poker tales of the years ahead be dominated by "I ran KK into AA! Can you believe it!? Talk about a bad beat!"

Orwell got it backwards. Two cards good, four cards better. 31Hz 'nuff said.

Scheduled Maintenance

If I had to blame anybody I suppose it would be Jessa Marko. Women have a habit of entering or leaving my life when I least expect it, and some time during the first week of November, Jessa appeared on the U.E.S. Drake in Cuban heels. Without her, I doubt I would have banged out the 50,000 words of "Breakdown" that are now awaiting 20,000 more.

At about the same time that Jessa was getting romantically involved with a cybernetics specialist, Grinder University not only appeared on the horizon but came thundering into my study like a freight train that, according to eye-witness reports every bloody Spring here in Kansas, sounds strangely like a tornado. I'll return to Grinder U in future blogs, but suffice it to say that 160 hours of November through mid-December were soaked up by the PLO8 course I put together.

And on my days off I was playing an average of 2,200 hands at PokerStars.

You'll notice that all of this involved being plugged in to a computer. Which has additional pitfalls such as little windows popping up saying things like "some people you've never met have birthdays this week." Also stuff about something called a "credit score," and a reminder from Bunches.co.uk that I have unused "posy points."

Since I don't like the outside world during the months when there are no leaves on deciduous trees, this isn't all bad, but I have more than me to consider. Zoot the cat is meandering towards being Zoot the ex-cat and requires a considerable amount of attention. Which is difficult to provide when I'm doing what I'm doing now, and even more difficult when I'm playing poker. For example, there are now five PLO8 6-max players who are convinced I've added the flop bluff-reraise to my arsenal when in fact it was Zoot tripping over a banana and landing on the mouse.

Rufus needs a lot of attention when he's being normal-for-Rufus. The stress in the Kattery produced by Zoot getting increasingly creaky and me trying to avoid going bust has got the red-headed Stepcat even more jittery than usual. So when he howled at me the other day I made a point of asking him very politely if this could wait thirty seconds since I was in hands on six different tables. He replied that he really felt this issue should be addressed now.

And when I looked down at his pear-shaped form I saw a very unhappy cat sitting with his favorite piece of string. A piece of string that I had not used to play "swipe," "pin," or "fetch" for several days.

Turns out that it wasn't Jessa Marko's fault at all. It was mine.

I was contemplating all this a few hours later as Rufus crashed into the front door trying to trap the light of a laser pointer, and realized that I was absolutely fucking knackered. Emotionally drained. Anxious. Plain tired. Really not in good shape at all.

I really need two of me, but public opinion has come out very clearly on this one, maintaining that one of me is more than enough.

So I have developed the following plan. From 6 p.m. December 24th to 1 p.m. January 2nd I will be offline for scheduled maintenance. The computer will be off, my phone will be off, the front door will be locked, and I will be with the cats, or books (the kind you pick up and that smell funny), or the vacuum cleaner. Mostly there will be a lot of sitting and breathing.

If you really need to get hold of me, remember the following: If a problem has no solution, it isn't a problem; if a problem has a solution, it isn't a problem. In other words, you don't need to get a hold of me.

See you all next year.

Someone Else's Wall

Sit
Stand
Up
Shake it down again
Panic held at bay
By a sharp intake of breath
See
There
I did it in another tone
Up
Down
Now
In the rafters there are
Cats
Birds
Bats in the belfry
Tell me

Why a word on
Someone else's wall
Will change my day
And an empty room
Can conjure you
The Sara who won't fade

Slow
Down
Stop
Speed it up again
Putting life on pause
As a poem holds its breath
Please
You
Found me in another room
Look
Here
Now
In the cupboard there are
Rats
Bones
Cats ringing bells
So tell me

Why a word on
Someone else's wall
Will change my day
And an empty room
Can conjure you
The Sara who won't fade

And your name on
Someone else's tongue
Like Lucozade
And a morning dream
That summons you
The Sara who won't fade

And a thousand nights
I've thought of you
And wondered what you'd say
If I ever closed
My eyes on you
The Sara who won't fade

To Sara...

Nano time again

“What is this crap?” said a red, shaking Jessa Marko. “Have you all lost your minds? Our system has worked for four centuries. You're attempting to convert what is usually little more than a ceremonial one-year position into a five year presidency! This is a bizarre, backwards coup d'etat and it's completely unacceptable!”

“Jessa...” began Anderson.

“I have the floor, Councilman!” boomed Marko. “And if you want to play this idiotic game you will address me as 'Captain.' Actually, I hereby decree that henceforth you will address me as 'Supreme Leader.'”

“Point of order, Supreme Leader,” said Anderson.

“The fool from Stellar Astrophysics is recognized,” said Marko.

Anderson composed himself and wondered why he had become spokesman for the revolutionary forces.

“First,” said Anderson, “this is a matter to be voted upon by the Council over which you preside. You have no power of veto. Second, we have not attempted to remove the right of the Captain of the Drake to resign, with or without giving reason to the Council and crew.”

“So you mean this motion is already passed, you're then going to put it to a ship-wide plebiscite, and if for some unfathomable reason the crew decide they want me to remain as Captain it's going to be impossible for me to decline?” Marko was still visibly fuming.

“Actually, no,” said Anderson evenly. “If you are sure that you do not wish to see this motion passed, then its existence will never leave this room. In fact one reason we wrote this motion on a piece of paper is that there need not be any trace of it if you are adamant that you do not wish to continue sitting in the big chair.”

“So if I say 'no way on Earth or in orbit' you're going to set fire to it?”

“No,” said Anderson. “I'm going to eat it.”

Marko had the sinking feeling that she was becoming slightly less furious.

“Captain, all we are really asking is that this proposal be put before the voting population of the Drake. We will not campaign for it beyond including the preamble that you see in front of you.”

Marko sighed. “All those in favor of the motion please say 'dildo.' Thank you. Have the record show that the motion was passed by nineteen to zero with one abstention.”