A Change of Surname

I posted this a few days ago on the Ars Notario site:

Yesterday someone said something that made me think in a way I have never thought before. It was so simple. He said that when he and his girlfriend decided to have children they wondered what surname to give their children. They didn't believe in marriage and all its connotations, nor did they like double barreled names (which name would get dropped?). So, like in days of old, they considered changing their name to one that reflected their occupations or where they lived.

I won't say what they chose, but somehow it was a perfect choice. It seemed right. It suited them, and even though I have never met their children, I bet it suits their children. It also made me think of the freedom of such a move. History smacked into the past and left there, a clean slate, no associations, a freshness, a newness, a sense of starting again, a cancelling out of all that has gone before, a clean break, an invention, a rebirth, how refreshing and liberating. A new family. A new future. An end to ancient family feuds.

But what about the past? Family history? Did it hurt those who believed the continuation of the family name was important, that their place, that their ink/digital existence had been threatened by a new and tiny family tree (a seedling). Did it seem disloyal? A slight? A stab in the back?

So reader, what if you decided to change your name? Now. Right now. Change it to suit your occupation, or the place you live? Joseph Journalist? Anthony Twickenham? Andrew Doncaster? Thomas Teddington? Philip New Malden? Lawrence Lawyer? Colin Weatherman? Brian Banker? Janice Insurance? Sue Southampton? William Wimbledon? Roger Public-Relations? Julie Animator? Bernard Biddulph? Nick Racist? John Plasterer? Bob (middle name - the) Builder? Mick Richmond? David Inverness? Simon Welder? Eric Programmer? Alan Administrator? Sharon Marketing? Bob Artist? Daisy Social Worker? Danni X-Factor? Tracy Counsellor?

Try it. How does it make you feel? Does it suit you? If you adopted it, what effect would it have on you? On your future? On your confidence? Your ambition? How people perceived you?

If you are doing a job that you love, that fits, that is right, and you live in a place that you feel secure and happy with, then why not change your name? Go on, give it a go....

Willy Mason and friends at St Giles Church Soho, the Pain of the Pew.

This is not a musical review of his music as such, it is a review of an evening watching and listening to Willy Mason, his friends and family. I don't know many of his songs or many of their titles (apart from Oxygen), so apologies. I also need to put it in context: I went by myself, my first ever gig alone.

As I queued I felt self conscious being alone. Everyone was talking to someone. An old man near me with a sandwich and a coffee was also alone. I thought - great kindred loner. He kept trying to push in, nudge in front of me. I felt aggression rising within me, his Hovis bag was bothering my arm, he was edging into me in an elderly manner. No, no, he is fellow loner, don't say anything. Then he got a call from someone, he said he would be in the building soon. Shit. He was not alone. Maybe I should give him a piece of my mind? No, not at a Willy Mason gig.

So, I get through the door and a woman passes me an "eatyourownears" wrist band. She says: "Just one ticket?". "Yes" i whisper. That hurt. I am feeling very Leperish. An outsider. Billy (Willy) no mates. I want to tell everyone that this is the first gig I have ever been to alone, to stop staring (no one was staring). But when I got inside I found a friend, my notebook. I really didn't intend it to look pretentious, it was a prop to occupy my time (as Michael Stipe once said) and it kept me company, in a way. Here is what I wrote:

St Giles Church, the Black Plague started in this area. I feel like I have the Plague. I am alone at a gig. Someone I know is here but they are in a pew - with a friend. Willy comes on to the stage, i thought he was a bouncer or a roadie or a lost rugby player. He looks like he can handle himself, I thought he was a sweet and tender man, slight, delicate and breakable. No. He is broad shouldered. Filled out. A man. I was expecting a boy. Musicians are not normally built this way (though Nick Heyward is now no longer the puny framed boy he once was).

I have not eaten. I have not had a drink. I am hungry and thirsty. Those on their way to be executed in the 16th century would stop by the church gates of St Giles to have a drink, a soporific ale, to dull the senses, dull the pain when the pain comes. I need a drink. God I need a drink. I am in the right place to ask God. Maybe. I am willing to slip behind the altar and steal the altar wine, scuttle off to some tomb shadowed corner where the dead are remembered in stone, and neck it. I suddenly realise Willy plays bluesy music. I am not a a fan of THE blues. I have gone off the colour because of its musical connotations.

Willy says he is going to sing a lot of new songs and you can see shoulders in the pews slouch a little, a reverse Mexican wave. He sings a couple of songs, which are probably new. His voice is pure and fitting somehow, the church suits him. Fits him. I could imagine him singing at the back of a church on a hot Sunday , somewhere in the midwest, in Little House on the Prairie land. Behind him, his band play with laid back precision and beauty. He sings: "That smile poured Heaven right into my soul". I like the delivery of the line, i believe him. He has me. I am charmed, for a while.

Then Jemima James, a guest, sings a song. Before she starts she says how great British audiences are which gets an easy but embarrassing cheer. Just as well as she does not stir the crowd with her singing (singing an embarrassong), but as it is early in the night she receives a warm and encouraging response from the crowd (congregation).

Willy steps up to sing some more, alone, no band, but everyone is relieved. His voice blows warm into the pews, tickles the chandeliers, sweeps over the altar and hovers above the pulpit. His lyrics though get stuck in the aisle, they are sometimes too predictable and when he sings"face" i know that the word "disgrace" will follow. It does and my heart "sinks like a stone". Then he fakes a hiccup as he sings a country song that involves someone drinking too much, it is met with uncomfortable half laugh from the crowd. I think the audience are squirming but when the song ends, they go mad, they loved it. I am wrong.

The next guest takes to the stage, Sophie Tan I think he said. She is wearing a headscarf, oh no, a bad sign. It was. Her voice is lost in the grandeur of the church, frail folk, she sounds like a child or a church mouse, her voice lost and nervous. I am amazed that she has the confidence to get up there and sing, I admire her for her courage, she might be nervous but she had the nerve to get up there and sing in the first place. She sings of a "lowly pawn". We clap her courage. We miss Willy.

Willy returns and says he is going to sing about the "religion of booze" - big cheer. Someone coughs, a dirty Black Plague cough, a Swine Flu cough. Willy sings about THE blues, so I think I might have got it wrong, he must have said the "religion of THE blues". Oh dear, why am I here? THE blues. I have them and I don't like them. But still his voice warms and soothes, rarely if ever dipping out of tune. I like him. I notice not many take photos, is it the church? Respect for the dead, for God? Fear of photographing a ghost?

Another song, with a line "With the front door of my heart open", he sings it with his heart open. Jemima and Sophie sing quietly in the background to sweet effect, tapping on his heart. They sound little. Was the song called "Holy Restless Fugitive"?
His ad libs are a little awkward, though it is early in the set. He is still warming up. The next song tests me - show me the way to go home he sings - reading my mind. "We're all trying to find a way home" a used to death line that Willy's song does not resurrect. I am tired and I want to go to bed. A theremin (or saw of some kind? - I can't see) adds eeriness to his candy voice, the spirits are waking. My backside is hurting, the dread of prayer from my youth haunts me. The boredom of priestly sermons, butt dull.

Willy announces that the planned intermission will not now take place, he blames the Post Office, as it "took time filling the place". Presumably tickets were delayed in the PO (industrial action), "Pews were designed with discipline in mind" he says smiling.

The band are back. His brother on drums. David Walsh on guitar, met with a big cheer (I wonder why, the only David Walsh I know of was a friend of mine at school who bought me Raw Power for my 17th birthday). Willy sings a song that one of the girls wrote for him. A 16th century prayer rip off, apparently. After this dirge he sings a that shone like a halo in a stable, the title of which might be "For the Need of Love". I forgot my pew bum. "She's drinking poison, nobody filled her cup, I've seen heroes cry for the need of love". I am interested again, I am charmed, a little hypnotized. Then one of the girls return to the stage - OH Christ no, please, not now. Oh no, she is singing about fouls, beasts, alabaster and masters. Master faster cast her master alabaster. A girl in front of me whispers "disaster".

Another song, it features pick up trucks. It makes me think of a friend i once had, an American. He accused me of being an attention seeking Hugh Grant type, I pray for his perception. Alter it, altar it. Two people leave as Willy ends his song. I am tempted but the band are getting into it. Some thump, some beat, some thud, some light. God's heartbeat. The dead are kicking the floorboards from underneath. The accordion is lost in the mix, a shame. "Turn the boat around" "Run us to the ground". I want more, more to consider and think about.

One of the girls gets up to sing again. Shoulders slouch again. BUT this time the voice wows us, she is a female Lou Reed (Pew Reed), a gorgeous God given voice. Nina Violet? Jesus. Sweet, cool and warm, like a just slept in bed. First goosebump of the night for me. I think she sings "Don't move me down with the pretty girls". I am converted. "How did you get so close to me?" she asks someone in her song. I feel close to her. Close to her voice anyway. The loneliness was worth it.

But then, oh no. The English singer returns to sing a song called Boldface in Provence, which is apparently about an electronic music festival in France. Her introduction did not get the laugh she expected (her pause was a giveaway). The pain of the pew returns "I have hurt my heart, I feel nice, I feel right, I feel nice, I feel right, my face aches...I am killing myself". Oh please no more. I decide that it is time to leave. Alone. People stare.

Crossing the bridge over the river, oh the beauty. The lights of the Hayward Gallery, of the Oxo Tower, of the London Eye, of St Pauls, of Festival Hall, I don't know why, all make me think of the girl who gave me the goosebumps in the church, Lou Reed's sister (in musical terms). Do do do do do do do do do do.

I heard from a friend at the gig (who I didn't meet up with ..... it's a long story) that later on Oxygen was a triumph. But, when we talked the next day, she said she was not a musician, but felt that the music didn't go anywhere, she felt a little let down overall and she is a Willy Mason admirer. But we both agreed, he had a lovely voice, that never went out of tune the way his lyrics did.