chris moore
chris moore
chris moore
@chris-moore

Category: try something different for a change

Chance encounter


By chrismoore, 2011-07-21

As many of you guys know, I commute each week from Bordeaux in France to London to go earn my daily bread, and from time to time you meet some interesting people on the plane, apart from the twelve or so of us who make the journey every Monday and Friday.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the boarding gate at Gatwick, waiting for it to open, and one of the ground crew went past me escorting a guy carrying an acoustic guitar case covered in tour labels.  He want down the ramp to the plane before everyone else was let through - Aha, I figured, he wants to find a safe spot for his guitar before all the tourists fill up the luggage space.

So I didn't think about it again until we were all getting off the plane in the evening sunshine at Bordeaux, and I took another look, and recognised the guy, just as the stewardess pulled his guitar case out of the back of the business class coat locker.  It was Chris Difford of Squeeze, who were one of my favourite bands back in the eighties and ever since.  Had a quick chat with him before I lost him in the customs queue.  The guy is the most incredible lyric writer and musician, made his name writing down to earth pop songs with a serious lyrical hook (if you can remember, think of "Up the junction", "Pulling mussels from a shell", "Tempted", Black coffee in bed" and many more that I can think of which were real classic songs back in those days - almost all the Squeeze songs were written by Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook, both of whom are still gigging today.  Jools Holland, who was with them for a while, has gone a lot further though, it seems.

Anyway, must have inspired me somehow, because the song I put together over the past three days is very much in the Squeeze mould, happy song with some cute lyrics, which you may like if you're a long-time Squeeze fan like me.

Here's the song for your delectation my friends: Breaking into you

Cheers,

Chris

Chris Plays Guitar Shock... Out with the neglected Mr Jackson

Oh **** I've got sore fingers!  How in hell am I going to make a roll-up with these?  It's alright for you real guitarists but my fingers prefer the touch of ivory.  Anyway suffice it to say that my old Mr Jackson was sitting there looking all blue and not too metallic under the coat of dust that had settled on him and making me feel guilty and how long is it since I did a real guitar song...?   so I blew off the dust and polished him up a bit, and then he made me play this song I've called Walk Away.  I'm not used to mixing guitar tunes.  All the controls WAY up high on the multiband to let it all come through, so I ended up with a lot of lower reverb... ah who cares anyway...

Hope you like it.  I did.  And don't ask me how many takes to get the (rather easy) solo just right...

Happy new year, all!

Chris