Last week, I had the wonderful pleasure to be tete-a-tete with Son of Dave, Benjamin Darvill, of the one time Crash Test Dummies, at the Cluny, the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle... This is a once industrial area, full of Victorian warehouses, now almost transformed with European funding into artists' studios, an interactive museum replete with old and new Children's Books, 'Seven Stories', a horse-riding centre with resident gee-gees, galleries and the Cluny, a former whiskey bottling plant...
With a stamp on my hand, the like of which I had not seen since the Under 16's disco at the Catholic Club in 1980, I stood with many others (mainly gobby, chit-chatting, men - Don't dare say to me that women are the more talkative sex!!!), to listen to the wonders of this man, Benjamin Darvill, native of Winnipeg, Canada, now resident in the UK, where he must feel very much at home amongst us English Eccentrics, living la vida loca, in song and sound, in life and loves, in mind and mentality, in word and deeds...
And he was WONDERFUL, and life-enhancing... I felt full of wonder just spending one and a half hours in his crazy, fabulous, crackers, talented, musical presence, dodging beer being poured over me by gossiping men, swilling Cherry Kriek from Belgique and eschewing all but the Absolutely Fabulous, dahlink...
I live, I love, I listen to music, and I ask you...
What made you smile today?
