Last weekend saw two big nights out for me and, with complete disregard for chronological order, the second has already been shared; this post is about the first.  On Friday evening (24th October), I went to a gig at the Craufurd Arms in Wolverton, Milton Keynes to see a band called “Purson”.

The band has only been around for a couple of years and currently has an album out called “Circle and the Blue Door” and a four track EP/single called “In the Meantime”. Purson is young in terms of average age and fronted by the beautiful, captivating and gifted Rosalie Cunningham.  

The genre of music is psychedelic rock which you’d be right to associate with the late sixties and early seventies, think Deep Purple or Rainbow but more progressive/hippy.  For a young band it’s an interesting genre to play because prog/psychedelic rock has an instant appeal for ageing folk like me but perhaps less resonance with people of the band members’ ages.

Some background stuff before I launch into the gig review proper. I became aware of the band because my friend and work colleague Mark Hughes lent me the album. Having listened to it a few times, I handed his CD back and bought my own copy – “Circle and the Blue Door” hasn’t left my car since.

Mark was also responsible for booking the tickets for the gig and for that I thank him muchly (not actually a word but it should be – profusely would of course be suitable). A meet up for a beer and burger in central Milton Keynes preceded the journey to Wolverton where we were joined by Chris Tucker (who will love being name checked).

The Craufurd Arms is a recognised venue on the pub gig circuit and hosts bands almost nightly. There is a hall at the back of the pub that is used for the more significant, ticketed gigs but it is not large and allows for an intimate viewing experience (video screens most definitely not required).

Purson took to the stage somewhere around 9pm and commanded it immediately; in appearance terms the band members looked as retro as the material they were playing. The bass player with his elbow length, curtain like brown hair, full beard and flares looked every bit vintage Black Sabbath; the keyboard player, dressed in a glittery purple jacket and wearing makeup, presented a slim, androgynous, fixed expression, David Bowie kind of figure that had me wondering if Sam was a Samantha or a Samuel; the guitarist had a clean, Ray Davies (The Kinks) kind of look about him; Rosalie well she just looked like a flower power goddess, long dark hair, big amulet, unbelievably slim waist, flares, platform type boots. The drummer of course largely obscured as is inevitable.

For the whole gig, I was about six feet away from the stage and watched and listened and absorbed the scene - whilst swaying along and gently head banging to the music, one could almost feel like one had been transported back in time.  

The audience at the gig was diverse, which I guess was to be expected given the nature of the music; there were plenty of grey hair types present and many of those significantly older than me too. There were teenagers and twenty-somethings in attendance but that group was not in the ascendancy as far as I could tell.   

The band played pretty much all of its catalogue including my favourite songs “Spiderwood Farm”, “Well Spoiled Machine” “Sapphire Ward” and “The Contract” – as well as the new tunes from the recently released EP/single “In the Meantime”.

All the musicians were confident and accomplished and Rosalie’s voice was strong and had range; my view - Purson is a properly competent, tight and professional band.

There was an encore during which Rosalie announced that the band would meet the audience at the end of the gig and chat/sign merchandise. I can report that the band came good on Rosalie’s promise. And having purchased the EP at the gig, Mark and I were able to get our CDs signed by all of the band members. For me this willingness on the band’s part to add value to their fans’ experience is a big deal and worthy of praise. And in a linguistic twist, it’s kind of appropriate that Purson is personable.

For Rosalie, being surrounded by middle aged blokes clamouring for her attention could easily put her off bothering to meet the punters. Although bothering helped sell significantly more Purson branded stuff so was a good commercial call!

Not being bashful, Mark and I both got our pictures taken with Rosalie (my photo attached). I have to be frank, she is a real fox; of course she knows it too and uses her voice, beauty and big eyes to maintain the full attention of every man in the room.

Finding out that she was 24 or thereabouts was a little bit depressing for me though when I realised that this siren was/is young enough to be my daughter.  Equally transfixed Mark, only 30, Chris still in his twenties had no such concerns.

When performing, the characters in the band were slightly larger than life, the stage elevated them all a little and their instruments, outfits and the lighting rig gave them power and presence. When playing you’d have thought the band members were all six foot tall and aged beyond their years. When meeting them after the gig, it was interesting to reflect that their ages became more apparent and all were smaller in stature than I expected.

All in all I thought that the band delivered an excellent performance; I had a great night and am very pleased that I attended. The ticket for this gig only cost £7/£8; I think that’s very good value to see a band that I am convinced will go far. 

I am looking forward to next album, apparently written and hopefully not too long delayed by record label legal issues.

Thanks to the band for providing some great entertainment and to Mark Hughes and Chris Tucker for the pleasure of their company. 

And to end, a recommendation; look this band up, buy a CD, download a tune, find out if Purson rocks for you.

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Greetings reader, thanks for visiting. This post starts with an apology - October has been a rather quiet month in terms of blog posts; I have been flat-out busy in my new job and putting in extra hours on a daily basis to get up to speed quickly and deliver to expectations. To be clear, I am not bemoaning this situation at all, in fact it’s all been quite exciting.

Much has happened since my last post, the sad loss of Lynda Bellingham, the life threatening injuries to Jules Bianchi sustained at the Japanese Grand Prix, and reports of the amazing recovery of Wilko Johnson – apparently now free from the cancer that was expected to kill him. All events worthy of a post in their own right.

I have actually watched some shout at the telly stuff on the BBC rather than Channel 4 (admittedly BBC 3). “Hotel of Mum and Dad” followed some teenage couples aiming to set up home away from the comfort and protection of their parents’ homes/money. Watching the mollycoddled teens with their unrealistic expectations and selfish behaviours annoyed me so much, I had to walk away and do something else; though Mrs Baldwin continued shouting at the screen in my absence.

For me, knowing that my licence fee was contributing to the making of this programme irked immensely.  There was plenty of potential for a specific blog post but the initiative was lost with the passage of time.

Following on from my post on job hunting, an excellent comment was added from a colleague called Chris Tucker about his experiences at the mercy of the recruitment industry. This month also saw me exchanging messages with Dave Childs the publicity representative for the Droopsnoot Group (DSG). Having read my post about the 40th Anniversary of the High Performance Firenza, he got in touch and sent on a copy of the special anniversary newsletter.

On to more current affairs - the focus of this piece will be the big night out had on Saturday (25th October) with some of my old school friends.

During the course of 2014, a larger than life character from my past, a chap by the name of Richard Davies, took the initiative to use Facebook to pull together a group of friends long separated by events, the act of living and geography.

For me, school reunions have never held much appeal, school (mine was Hitchin Boys’ School (HBS)) was just like a production process that you followed from start to finish and then left without ever looking back - I didn’t hate school but I don’t recall it with any affection at all.  My old secondary school has an old boys’ society and the likelihood of me joining it…zero!

The fact is that there is a large group of individuals from my formative years that I’d take active steps to avoid. If any of these people had organised a get together or were even joining in, I’d have opted for Ebola instead of attending.

But because it was Richard, I was intrigued and accepted an invite. Saturday night was the third event (out of four potential) that I have got involved in. All have been an absolute hoot.

The night out in Hitchin included a few beers in the Bricklayers and many more drinks in the Hermitage bar/restaurant.

Including myself, Saturday night saw five fellas turn up. One of our number, an old pal called David Hurley, I hadn’t seen or talked to in 25 years. The good thing was that despite the elapsed time our group all fell into easy going companionship so much so that in one bar we all got chatting to a group of female teachers who thought the five of us were in a band (to be fair, within our complement, a few of us were rather flamboyantly dressed, Felix particularly (see photo)). I reflected that if the analogy had been a company then Rich would have been sales, Felix design, me marketing, Mike operations and Dave engineering.

On the subject of outfits, and if you are interested, I was wearing a cream 1970s wide collar shirt, open at the neck; large, gaudy, red stoned, gold plated cufflinks; a complementing brown reefer style, button closing, button pocketed, wide lapel leather jacket. I didn’t expect it but people actually came up to chat to me because of my retro apparel.

My observations from the get-togethers are these:

• All of us are still recognisable despite the ravages of time – increasing age, grey hair, hair loss, crow’s feet, weight gain etc.
• Most of us have had similar experiences, university, marriage, children etc. and therefore still have much in common
• Getting together helped the years fall off all of us – at least for the night (I can’t comment on hangover issues on the following day)
• No one was interested in the kind of one-upmanship I hate – no comparing salaries, cars or other status symbols.
  

Funnily enough on that kind of subject, David, who has a cosmopolitan, at times glamorous, international lifestyle that I admitted to being envious of, was actually envious of me for having a long-term, stable marriage and children. We concluded that the lesson “appreciate what you have rather than what you don’t” was as useful as most things we actually learnt whilst we were at school.

A most excellent evening was had thanks to a combination of drinking, chatting and flirting. Thanks to Rich for organising the event and to Felix for initially hosting us at Farleys. Felix is the proprietor of Farleys, which has to be the coolest place you can get your hair cut in Hertfordshire. Going to Farleys is not just about the haircut, it’s about the ambience, the music, the artworks, the eccentricity and the experience. If you like 50s/60s kitsch, or are a fan of Vladimir Tretchikoff or Joseph Henry Lynch, you’d be mad to get your hair cut anywhere else (although I do but only because I live some distance away).   

Fellas, if you read this, roll on the next occasion!

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As I write, I am in good spirits: a new job is the source of my feelings of wellbeing. Having spent three years doing time on the outside, I am pleased to report that I am back within the folds of the finance industry (importantly including fleet finance).

The new role has brought much positive change and I am excited about the future. I suddenly have a lot to learn/absorb in a small amount of time and an expectation that I will deliver good things quickly (the usual pressure then).

In reflecting, I find it comment worthy that whilst I am so chuffed about having a new job, the whole process of finding new employment is generally (this time excluded) something that I don’t enjoy at all.

As a marketer, you might think that I’d be quite happy promoting/pitching my skills and experiences to potential employers but the fact is that I find the process of selling myself makes me feel cheap, grubby; like some kind of prostitute touting his/her wares. 

To add to the emotional mix, I really struggle with recruitment agencies because the majority of them offer standards of service to candidates that are lower than a limbo dancer’s imagination. The challenge is that in searching for alternative employment, you can’t avoid having to deal with the recruitment industry.

Dear Readers, how many of you have spent hours working on your CV, covering letters, application forms, equal opportunities forms, references etc. to then upload everything to a recruitment agency’s website…

…only to get an automated, non-personal acknowledgement that goes along the lines of “Thanks for your interest; due to the high volumes of applications we receive we cannot respond to all applicants. If you haven’t heard from us in seven days, please assume you have been unsuccessful”.

For me, this kind of appalling communication irks me to the point of violence. I once got so cross that I wrote to one particular agency to express my anger. Here’s the content of that note:

“Dear Greg,

Thanks for this ‘standard’ acknowledgement note. As a marketing/communications manager expressing an interest in a communications role, I have to be honest and state that your automated email is horrible!

The key messages are that:

·         You can’t be bothered to manage applicants in a thoughtful way

·         You might give feedback but don’t expect it

·         As an applicant, I should expect failure

The line “should you not have heard from us within the next week, please assume that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion” is a ghastly affront to customer service. Seriously think about changing it, and the policies behind the sentiment, because both are contemptible!

Crikey I even work for a business associated with the recruitment industry and I hate this dismissive language!

As a bare minimum, you should change your automated response so that the salutation addresses the individual not their email account.  This is a simple database/email merge issue!

I’ll even help you write something significantly better if you’d value the input.

I am passionate about good communication; hopefully your client is too!

I’ll look forward to a conversation, but in the meantime will manage my expectations!

Best regards,

Adrian”

Funny enough, my application didn’t get progressed by the agency although I did have a frank conversation with one of the directors. The amount of difference it actually made – probably nothing (and I didn’t get to write a more humane, engaging “candidate interest acknowledgment”) but I felt better for venting my frustration.

Seriously, if corporate clients got the same kind of treatment when making enquiries as the candidates get, there would be far fewer recruitment agencies in existence.

Stating one’s distrust, dislike, distaste for recruitment agencies is potentially dangerous because it could affect one’s career potential – from a personal perspective though, I expect to be away from the clutches of recruiters for some years to come - so I’ll take my chances.

Have old wounds made me bitter and twisted or do my comments resonate with you? I’d be intrigued to know.

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