Sidemen or 2nd Fiddles

Sidemen or 2^nd Fiddles ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve just watched a show on BBC4 about Sidemen, or the backing musicians to Stars. The narrator was in fact a sideman to David Bowie, he also played with John Lennon. Another guy was featured who was sideman to the Rolling Stones, and Billy Joel’s sideman was also featured, who was actually a woman and the Lesbian lovers who were in Prince’s band also featured. So it was a really good documentary, 90 mins of great music and so on. Go watch it on the BBC iplayer if it’s there. I did spend years in smoky rooms watching bands in bars. Bell and Pump and Waterwaters Jazz, in fact it was the same room, an upstairs bar above the main bar, in a dodgy area by Edgbaston Reservoir.

So I do like my music and have seen 100s of acts over those years, or not so many acts but each several times. Mad Jocks and Englishman spring to mind as one of the best Folk acts. Mick Bisiker was the host, and now spooky as it may seem it must be 30 years ago when I was there, I can date it because he is mention in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. So he must be as 10 years older than I am now, and the beautiful Michelle behind the bar must be pension age now. Where has my life gone, where are all those wild oats I should have sown, the only oats I have are breakfast cereals, I was always working shifts.

All this is by way of a prologue, what about Sidemen? I was a sideman, or wingman to the priest. I grew up as an altar boy, we all were, my sister was in the choir, still is for 50 years. So what did I do as a priest’s sideman. I passed him water to wash his hands with, and wine to celebrate Mass with. I also rung bells at the highpoint of the Mass. Funerals and Benediction was best as you got to use the thurifer if I’ve spelt that right, this is a metal orb with a charcoal piece inside, and then the priest throws incense on it. And he shakes it in blessing then you the altar boy get to shake it too. Great fun when you are 12 years old.

Afterwards me and DMC would remove the charcoal and drop it down the drain in the church garden and watch it fizz and move about. Funerals had the most shaking of the thurifer and the Funeral Mass is the most moving with the best reading, the one  about Lazarus. Jesus wept for his friend, and raised him from the dead. In those days 40 to 50 years ago the Funeral was an all in black Mass. I counted up that I served 30 funerals as a boy altar boy. So Death does not make me afraid, though I’m in no hurry to meet it, even when I’m having my pain days from my Arthritis and surgery scars.

I was also a wingman when I worked at CPNEC, as Taz from security once said you could put me anywhere and I could perform. Some said it was a performance, I’d say I was just desperate to feed my toddlers so I worked my butt off. Doreen on Reception said she could always rely on me as I went room checking our 242 rooms so that she could release them. Then I’d hand her a slip of paper with the room numbers I’d just checked for her and give her an electric shock. Walking all over the carpeted hotel I built up and electric charge and discharged it when I handed the paper to her. It was nice to be useful and do my little bit. As timed progressed I also worked on reception and switchboard as well as many other roles. To be able to slot in and be a sideman or a wingman was very fulfilling.

However I don’t think I could be a sideman as a writer. I write my stuff and its done, I would hope somebody uses it well and not ruins it. Americans have teams of writers I don’t know if I could work as a team member on a comedy show. The writing culture is different, their humour is custard pie humour, its telegraphed. Ok, I’ll pause so that the Americans reading this can throw a custard pie at the screen.

Being in a team is nice so long as the leader pulls his weight, I have suffered from lazy leaders and worse in the past, I would not put up with it nowadays. The air would be blue very blue. Oh, just for balance I’ve had female bosses too and we got on great, its the manner that matters not which toilet the boss uses. Not that I’ll ever have a regular job, all I could do is write these silly stories you see, or hear before you. Yes I still dream of reading them on the radio, one story read six times a day on the radio, a verbal laxative to clear the mind via laughter.

If you can find your niche in work it great, but if you find your perfect match in love that is even better, especially if it lasts in today’s world. My parents seemed to be so well matched, mum taking dad’s socks off with wooden tongs as the sweat had glued them to his feet after 12 hours in the steel works. When mum died dad said she had a phrase for every occasion and that she had all the graces. Something he never said in her lifetime. He also said that she was as strong a horse, which is high praise coming from a County Kerry Blacksmith.

This weekend would have been 68 years married, what more can I say, find love and hope that it lasts. Me I found words and I’ve gone past the million word mark, but nobody knows. I could die as the undiscovered writer, it would just be nice to have a bit more comfort in this life. Or maybe I’ll end up a writer for USA tv, but first I’d need to take cookery lessons, to make all those custard pies.