Today I received
a message from my old band’s ex-manager, to say he’d heard one of our songs playing in the
background of yesterday's episode of 'Saturday Kitchen' on BBC1.
Take a moment to
savour the above sentence. It’s not something I get to say often, if at all
(except for then, when I just said it). I’ve never found myself in a position where my music was used as a bed for Nigel Slater to make a beef
and lentil salad, and I doubt I will again; this is a once-in-a-lifetime
moment and a great way to start the New Year.
Except it isn’t,
as it wasn’t; my music, that is,
though I genuinely did a double-take when I tracked down the offending article on iPlayer. Nearly everything was right, from the guitar sound, to the
riff, to the fact both songs were played on instruments downtuned
a semi-tone, so an open G chord became an F#; if I didn’t know better, I’d say someone went to the effort of recreating the title track of our
1998 Get Happy EP sans vocals instead of asking permission to use it -
though why anyone would go to all this trouble when we would clearly have said yes; it’s not like we’ve had any better offers in the nineteen intervening years.
When I get the
chance, I’ll compile a compare & contrast clip to accompany this blog
and let my reader(s) decide whether I’ve been ripped off or not.
In the meantime, whenever there’s a chef on TV, I’ll keep my ears to the
ground; Slater, Lawson and Martin won’t be cooking to the tune of an Ephgrave masterpiece
on my
watch.