Music Bus

Seven years of mobile music

by Anthony Wallis

Omega & Alpha

Was it worth it? Of course it was!

To take it on its last trip for MusicLinks was tough. Tough because it was freezing cold, no heating, and a long way at 44mph max. and sad because it wasn’t coming back. That was the end.

The beginning too was ‘tough’. The first bus was bought from a chap on the Black Isle, north of Inverness. An old double decker dating back to about the middle of the last century with no power steering, no heating and 40mph as its top speed.

On its maiden trip with us, to be honest 100 yards from the start, I put it in a deep ditch; no power steering, I hadn’t realised. The rakish angle caused panic as those there expected it, at any moment, to capitulate into the adjacent field. Tractors and JCBs saved it, and the hours of cold and slow journey to Kendal commenced.

The ‘Meet’ Inbetween

In that first year, the only year with that bus (the bottom fell out of it!) it went to schools as a mobile music room, festivals, streets and parks as a stage, bringing performers to audiences, children and adults together making music and groups of children, used to working together, closer by making music together. With the new bus, from then on, to car parks and lay-bys, as a practice room and mobile self-sufficient recording studio, producing CDs to be taken away at the end of each session. In Booths car park at Kirkby Lonsdale on at least two occasions a break was taken just before the supermarket closed to load up with discounted food to last us well into the night, as the group, on the lower deck, performed their music, and upstairs, Martin, the sound engineer, monitored on a large visual display screen, and recorded their work. Kirkby Lonsdale slept as music, and maybe history, was made. Experimental computer assisted compositions followed in many locations and with a wide variety of ages.

Miles were eaten up in the pursuit of musical merriment and creative endeavour, from Barrow to Carlisle, Maryport to the Gateshead Flower Show, Silloth Beer & Music Festival to Kirkby Lonsdale, music was made. At festivals artists from the main stages would sign up for the open mic sessions. An Indian street band paraded on and in front of the bus in glorious and colourful billowing, raucous rhythms and doing horrible things with knives and skewers to their bodies. Diminutive singers played guitars stressing the unfortunate things of life in sensitive and plaintive tones. Ben Gates coxed & boxed with the acts on the bus, with impressive sculptural sound making extravagances at Brampton Live, and kept me awake at night by singing improvised songs about baguettes with his entourage, and the beating of many plastic sewage pipes.

Staveley Carnival and its bands always seemed to have the best weather, lots of sunshine shimmering on metallic plastic costumes. Andy Halsey’s childrens songs brought people from Leeds to the Brampton Live festival, hoards of parents joined in (oh! and their children too) with the singing games, and in Masham, at the Black Sheep Beer Festival, the occupants of a passing van started singing one of his songs (don’t suppose we’ll ever find out who that was). Zeus, as it was called, now the Rory Connor Band, performed their well formed , sensitive and evocative repertoire at Silloth and Brampton. Music made by organisations from Barrow, Carlisle and Penrith and individuals and groups from all over trod the boards of the bus at venues including Maryport Blues Festival, Lakeland YMCA, the Westmorland County Show and Solfest.

Workington Regeneration saw the enthusiasm of manic music makers which must have made heads subsequently ache from constant headbanging and the launching of band members into the mosh pit, surfing on the bodies of the admirers. Whitehaven Maritime Festival’s two locations, Quayside on Day One and a change overnight to a pitch up the hill, overlooking the harbour and the tall ships, that when we got there was taken up by locked and deserted other vehicles. Hours were lost in finding somewhere to park for the night, and the rest of the night’s sleep from 2AM lost in the very loud snoring of an unsavory drunk (a shipmate no less).

Schools in Carlisle, Orton, in fact many places performed. A quote from the Headteacher of Orton Primary School: “We loved our day with you. Children in isolated areas get very little chance to listen and play with real musicians”. Pint-sized primary children wrestled with full size double basses and Askham Girl Guides produced evocative poetry on a field trip to Acorn Bank in the Music In Nature programme. North Cumbria Technical College also were part of that programme. Older secondary children tramped the foothills of Blencathra in search of nature to be translated through drawing and words into graphic scores. A long walk ending in slight confusion as to where we actually were and how to get back to the bus. Other memorable long walks included White Moss, Fellfoot Park, and visits to Brockhole with the Brewery Arts Centre youth theatre group.

In Levens, with the first bus and no power steering, it was only possible to get into the primary school gate, two inches wider than the bus, by manouvering a many point turn, and to get out almost impossible, as we created the only traffic jam, I feel, they had ever seen, considering the amount of abusive advice we received from other would-be road users. Which reminds me of the 14′ 3″ bridge , north of Appleby, that we squeezed under with our 14′ 6″ bus.

Just over six years of musical activity throughout the county and beyond; not to mention the physical activity of setting up staging and sound systems, and the mechanics of keeping the bus running and roadworthy. Having spent thirty five years on the road, the much-loved bus made its final journey for MusicLinks. The search for the latest Music Bus has now begun.

All in all, a great time, and also a roaring success. Above all, when I think of the Music Bus I think of the excitement and enthusiasm it created in the creating young.

Let’s do it all again.

.