The Lad from Tad
This is an audio panorama of Paul Shearsmith playing with KMAT at the Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton on the 17th November 2012. It was to celebrate his car, a Volvo Amazon 131, which he had made into a full size photograph taken by me and mounted onto laser cut plywood. This ended up costing more than his actual car! It was exhibited at many venues around town including Printspace, Mario’s Cafe and Stoke Newington Assembly Hall. Later on the battered Volvo featured in a movie, it was some car!
From the minute I met Paul through my friend Giles Perring and the band Echo City we always got along and met up many times in the pub he helped save, The Pineapple. In fact, only the other day, I took another old friend there, passing the rusting Volvo Amazon, now missing a bumper, and pointed out the photograph of Paul playing his pocket trumpet, which is proudly displayed in The Pineapple. Our first collaboration was when I made a video from panoramas and stills for his track Iraq Attack back in 2006. I presume you can still hear the anger.
Yes Paul, along with his partner Bettina, was an activist, and we went to several demos together. Above you can see Paul playing a trumpet on a rainy day at a March for Homes demonstration in 2015, sponsored by Socialist Worker. But what I most remember is the joy and the laughter, the music and even the dancing. This mostly happened at Paul’s birthday around Guy Fawkes day, he always had a keg of real ale and some crazy music. Plus there were 2 New Years celebrations fondly remembered.
Still the best was yet to come. Bettina played saxophone with several big bands which I greatly enjoyed and then out of the blue Paul produced a song with the Dan Spanner Big Band which I loved – My Degeneration. I believe it was the only song they ever had a vocalist for (apart from Dan) and it was a dynamite rewrite of The Who’s My Generation. We made a video for it in half an hour before their gig at The Gunners, while the pub was still open. That was the only time the band were actually all together, although we did a lot of prep beforehand to ensure our plans ran smoothly. This was the comment from the celebrated singer Maggie Nicols: I love this. I even joined vimeo so I could comment. It needs to go viral.!!
I saw Paul play many times, in many different groups. He was always experimenting, whether with saws, hosepipes, plastic trombones or pocket trumpets. It was always a delight, yet he always listened and could be quite diffident onstage, the mark of a true musician. Going through my archives I found this Test Video which I have never posted, taken at Alan Wilkinsons Film Flam club in Stoke Newington in 2020. It features a group called Bubble with Keisuke Matsui on guitar and Adam Bohman on objects. I hope it it reminds you of what a remarkable person he was. Thanks Paul!
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