Good evening my pretties!
Well now, this aquaintance with www.matthewjshaw.com, photographers to the stars is proving most bonny for Betty.
After our photoshoot the other week, I was given a free ticket to their latest piece of work to see them in action ….
.but and yet and also and at the same time….
enjoy the brilliant hospitality of their host venue W.A.M.A. www.wamalamadingdong.com
and it’s most recent guest artiste Goldie!!!
Now I am not an efficianado of drum’bass but I know when it’s good ay…….and he played a blinder..but more of that in a bit.
As I said, I get invited by a very groovy and professional outfit, to a very groovy and professional venue……….sse that Betty? Get her and her groovy and professional ways…lol
I turn up to meet Maria, the queen of The Wycombe Academy, she has ideas and plots and is a strong woman , a steely business woman, all five foot and fag paper of ‘er! She knows what she wants and almost certainly how to get it! …….the academy is one of those things..she and her family have within ten months from scratch created a great space done out with chi chi red and white décor , a very comfortable upstairs gallery and patio area….but also one of the biggest and best sound systems, for about 30 miles around…..they employ one of the nicest and most quietly talented sound engineers , George, too.
I then meet Marco, son of Maria and the artistic vision man of the show, he loves music and has been involved with promoting and venues and bands for some time and has a few contacts on the quiet, he looks like he should with a massive pile of dreadlocks and shades……he is very cool , very casual,and perhaps a cad, what with his cheeky remarks of my beauty, is most generous, Betty was given free roaming of the place and wasn’t allowed to pay for anything ;-)
Between them they are making the most hospitable and welcoming, trendy and happening venue between London and Oxford. Obviously I gave it my best shot to engraciate myself and I hope that we might get to play there one day, , there up and coming list is quite special, Groove Rider and The Beat and The Specials to come………I think Marco wants The Blockheads too…who wouldn’t ha ha!
I am thinking it would be nice to set myself up on there local talent night, I will have to spend a bit more time up there for that though! ;-)
And so………..i settle in to watch the photographer at work, assistants lining up frames and checking plumb lines, setting up an installation
I also potter around the place, taking in the …vibe… I speak with George, to find out he is a student of sound and is studying engineering, he is bowled over to be working for W.A.M.A , as the equipment there is like no other to be found in your average venue, more like stadium style. Hel tells me, It is a coup for him and he beat several of his contemporaries in finding such a careering enhancing position……….which all sounds amazing.
I then meet Adrian and his posse, they are a gang of drum ‘n bass exponents and admirers who appear to live, breathe and eat the art form. They are also carriers of Adrian’s Wall! What is this Betty? I shall tell you my pretties, it is a bank of the very, very large and powerful speakers………….Now why? Does W.A.M.A. need such a thing when it is fully equipped, again, I shall tell you. It appears to be a thing of the drum ‘ bass crew that they like to be independent… It is a musical concept that seems to come from D.I.Y. principle and the artistes like to show that they own a big…….big set.
I sat watching them sound check under George’s keen eye and felt the sofa begin to lift bodily from the ground and shunt me along some centimetres with every surrounding beat……..mm,,mm, I was beginning to get it! ;-)
Doors opened this night, at nine and immediately a crowd of people piled in to hear, the first of three MC’S and dj’s giving us the go ahead to stand up, get up and fuckin’ partaaay!
The crowd pulses and ebbs and flows like the music and I spy three young girls who are very much, down in amongst it givenit large and quite frankly swimming over Adrian’s Wall, pinning their bodies against it and letting the vibe boom through them……..this sounds and indeed was extremely suggestive…..I am sure Adrian was very happy ha ha!
I also looked gaily upon a brilliant couple, both all of 17 years old, following each other round the dancefloor like two peacocks preening and giving each other atti tuuuude. I also watched the photographers, stalking the hall capturing the images, with kit that looked like it came from the millenium falcon flightdeck…. I sat on that sofa, becoming increasingly dizzy with the buuuuzzzzzz I was saving my dancing legs for later and I am very glad I did.
After “The Wickermaaaan” had finished his last sample and the crowd were hollering it was a strange thing to see a small group of large men, circuiting the room as if scanning for threat, it was as if the room was preparing for royalty and I suppose it was……..Goldie…….
Now he has after a fashion become somewhat of a national treasure has he not!, his film work, his t’v. work he appeals to more people than just drum ‘n bass fans…… he has a reputation as a good speaker and soundbite champion, his views and opinions count amongst the populace. His background Is well documented, as a rise against class, race and bearocracy, hardship and grief, he is a self made man who has witnessed adversity and shown that talent and determination will overcome most barriers……….and bugger it! he has talent.
It was apparent as soon as he took over the decks, his mastery of knob twiddling and was not lead by any nerdish technical mastery but by music…… his flair, timing and choice of sounds combined in a creative class and a beautiful melodic…..kalaedoscope, that no one could resist…Betty shook her bootay!......did I throw som e shapes? Yes I did my dears…….and Goldie, wandered too and frow, in a haze and trance of imaginative chemistry, finding and delivering a an intense, a reverberating, a rich and bountiful beat, right on the mark! His MC was practiced and between them they worked back ‘n forth to present a show worth watching. He played for an hour and a half and at the end of it th crowd were exhausted and so was Betty, under rapturous calling, he paraded down the stairs and out to do a meet and greet , making himself open to many and Betty got a handshake and well wishes. He posed with Maria for Matthew j Shaw photographers as the official image of the gig!…….and then he was off into the night! …….
Suddenly it was very late and Betty was very tired……..wow…iwas invited to stay for drinks and a chinwag before wending my way back to my lodgings AT Chez Shaw…..through the burgeoning morning sky…it was half past four and the birdies were starting to sing.. my ears were ringing still and my body felt like it had been shaken and stirred………hurrah!
I will be going back to W.A.M.A.whether Betty plays there or not it’s spanking!! you should give it a go my pretties….xxx