A Sour Note.


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.

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