mostly david ephgrave

I was very sad to hear the news via Twitter yesterday that one of the UK’s best small-scale music venues, The Square in Harlow, had finally been pulled down. This had been on the cards for quite some time - I remember discussing its closure with Phill Jupitus when Glyn and I interviewed him for the More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast back in January 2014 - but that didn’t soften the blow; you mightn’t have thought what wasn’t exactly the prettiest building in the prettiest of towns would be held in such affection by so many, but it really was; in its time, The Square played host to the likes of Blur, Coldplay, Eddie Izzard and more, including a band called Big Day Out that featured me in its ranks. We played the Square numerous times and recorded the drums for our ‘Seven Heavenly Lemony Lemons from a Seven-Eleven in Devon’ CD there, with Chris’ kit set up on the stage while I played a guide guitar into his headphones; it was our second home, in a musical sens...

BIg Day Out's 'Simplicity' was probably the closest I ever got to writing anything funky or sexy. (Phwoar. Funky, sexy David.) Like the majority of our demos, the studio version didn’t quite do the material justice, as a lot of the energy was lost. It didn’t help that in this instance, we mixed down everything bar the drum tracks in one session, and then overlaid a separate mix of the drums again later. God knows why we did this ; we must have been off our heads on disco biscuits. It revolved around a riff we had already used in a different song, Sensible Shoes, which was scrapped when our lead guitarist left and the group became a three-piece. Sensible Shoes - like a lot of our earlier incarnation’s material - was more of a novelty song than anything, but when we slowed the original riff down, we started to get a bit of a groove on. (I just said that in all seriousness.)   The song was about being left hanging by a girl that you liked, who wa...

Today, I thought I’d share a demo of one of my old band Big Day Out’s songs that, while never available on any of our CDs, was synonymous with us live from the moment we became a three-piece. The track – which is more of a jam, if anything – is called So Bad. It kicked off nearly every gig we played from 1999 until we split in 2002, before being briefly reinstated in 2008 when we reunited for one night only, to raise money for Glyn’s and my first Edinburgh show, The Balloon Debate. We were always fond of onstage gimmicks; in fact, The Supernaturals’ lead guitarist (who we occasionally gigged with) once said that if all our instruments packed up mid-set, we’d get by with half an hour’s stand-up (which was pretty prophetic). This song was no exception. I’d change the words of the first verse every night to incorporate the name of the venue (e.g. “Come on babe, now you’ve seen the flyers; the music’s playing in Bedford Esquires”) and we’d usually plan some comedy bu...

Of all the weekend performing arts schools I’ve taught at - and there have been quite a few - the one that was the most fun was in Harlow. The atmosphere was great. The staff got on brilliantly, had total faith in each other’s ability, and the students were lovely. Going there was never a bind, despite the early start. Any tiredness would soon be fixed by a black coffee and a biscuit. I worked there for four or five years; long enough to become a permanent fixture and to gain the students' respect. The saddest part was watching them grow up and leave. I remember one boy really not wanting to go. I understood how he felt; I knew how much my drama club meant to me when I was his age. It was where I felt safest, and most able to be myself. Being a teenager can be hard, man. (Apparently I grew up in the Sixties.) For me, these clubs are about giving children confidence. If they decide to work in Performing Arts in the future that’s great,...

I have a confession to make. I committed a crime fifteen years ago, which has played on my mind ever since. Owning up to it today maybe be my only chance of freeing myself from the guilt. So here goes:  I stole a sun visor belonging to the lead singer of the rock band ‘A’ at a gig in The Square in Harlow in 1999. It was a stupid thing to do. I knew that even then. My only excuse was I was egged on by my band mates. What can I say? I used to hang around with shifty people. It’s par for the course with growing up in Stevenage. ‘A’ are a Suffolk-based punk band (which isn’t an oxymoron). Their songs often have a humorous edge, which appealed greatly to my old band Big Day Out, as ours did too. We also liked their headgear; something that became painfully apparent, one fateful night in Essex. Back then, we wore flamboyant – or stupid – outfits. We picked up most of our clothing from the women’s section of charity shops. For some inexplicable reason we thought floral blouses we...