Rod Clements saw considerable chart success with folk-rockers Lindisfarne, penning their hit Meet Me On The Corner. He currently works as a solo artist, with his band, The Ghosts of Electricity, and in collaboration with other musical kindred spirits such as the late, great Bert Jansch, Michael Chapman, and Rachel Harrington. We trust you’ll enjoy the latest of Rod’s musings in which you'll find he’s NICELY OUT OF TUNE As soon as I walked into the bar I knew I was in the wrong place. I should have followed my instincts, turned round and walked straight out again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the wrong place: there was a picture of me on the wall telling everybody I’d be playing there that night. Besides, the boy behind the bar (who looked too young to be in there at all, never mind be running the place) had already spotted me and waved a greeting. It takes a special kind of bar to look welcoming at four o’clock in the afternoon, and this wasn’t one of them. The door from the busy street led straight into a dingy room with a small stage and a PA system stacked in the corner. The only customers were a few serious drinkers who looked like they’d been there all day. The boy behind the bar introduced himself as Jason. He was putting gigs on to attract students and the local music crowd, he said, and this was his first attempt. My heart sank. It looked more like the kind of place where cover-artists go to die. I went to look for my hotel. I found it in a maze of back streets with a blackboard outside advertising KARAOKE TIL LATE and sure enough, my room was right above the bar. I went for something to eat and kicked my heels till showtime. When I got back the PA was set up and the place was about half full, including a couple of drinkers still there from the afternoon. The table nearest the stage was occupied by a group of lads shouting at each other over the sound of the juke-box. I took a deep breath and launched into my first set, not that anybody took any notice. About ten minutes in, during a quiet song, the evening took an unexpected turn as Jason came out from behind the bar carrying a large cardboard box full of percussion instruments which he started dishing out to the audience. These were seized upon and bashed with enthusiasm, especially at the front table. I finished the song early and walked over to Jason, now sitting with his mates on the public side of the bar. He gave me a cheery smile: “Everything all right?” He looked crestfallen when I told him it wasn’t. After a brief discussion we agreed that I would disappear for twenty minutes while the percussion got put back in the box. In the pub next door I watched a customer remonstrating vehemently with the barman about his missing laptop, which it turned out the barman had taken for safekeeping while the customer played the games machine. It was that kind of place. Back at Jason’s bar, the noisy lads from the front table had also disappeared, disgruntled at having their toys confiscated. The rest of the small crowd seemed more inclined to listen now. Afterwards Jason seemed well pleased and offered me a pint. I declined on the grounds that I had to drive back to the hotel. “Great!” said Jason, “I’ll catch you there. They’ve got karaoke – maybe we could do ‘Fog On The Tyne’!” I dropped my stuff off in my room, the beats from downstairs thudding through the floor, and headed straight out. I found a nearby bar that was still open and settled myself into a quiet corner to phone my agent. I may have been the first, but I wasn’t the only one of her artists booked into Jason’s bar, and there were a few things I needed to tell her.