I am typing this blog in England now and will be getting up tomorrow to go to Belfast to perform Steve Tromans setting to music of Allen Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl. This event is being presented as part of the Between The Lines Literary Festival at Crescent Arts Centre.

For me this is a sort of full circle from an event that happened when I went to see Allen Ginsberg do a reading at the Crescent in 1994. I was just discovering the Beat generation at that time and had it not been for my friend Lee Hanna I doubt that I would have went to this event. We sat at the back of the hall and drank the bottles of cider we smuggled in and smoked dope disguised in rolly’s. Being a musician the thing that struck me most at the time was his songs on the squeeze box accordian. It was like a punk folk thing for me as he played in his own time and tune. To be honest I couldn’t tell you what he read that night as I was still very fresh to it and was still in my transition period from feral youth to responsible citizen.

When the reading was over Ginsberg went off the stage to the side and back to his dressing room. Lee said “Let’s go talk to him.”. Lee had wanted to kidnap Ginsberg and hold him until the troubles stopped but of course we didn’t do this. Some other guys came with us and as we followed him into the room he welcomed us in and told us to come in and sit down. This felt good because for I was more used to being chased out of places. It didn’t last long though for a guy who must have been the agent arrived and true to form chased us out of there he also got Ginsberg up to sign books that were being sold. We all shuffled along the corridor to the signing room and as Ginsberg sat down we fell in to the line to see him.

Lee had a book with him to get signed and produced it from his pocket. I had no money and shuffled in my pocket for some sort of scrap of paper or something. I decided I wasn’t going to offend this man with a frigging bus ticket so I just stood there feeling odd as the queue grew smaller and took me closer. Lee got his book signed and I arrived at the desk. I said, “I don’t have any money to buy your book so I’d just like to shake your hand.” He looked up at me and stood up, took my hand and kissed me on the cheek, saying nothing. Straight away I felt that that moment was to be a very significant one in my life.

In 2003 I had been living in Birmingham a few years and was becoming more and more involved in the local music scene. I heard in a conversation that a local musician Steve Tromans had received a commission from Birmingham Jazz to put Howl to music. I remember thinking I would love to narrate that but I didn’t know Steve and there was no way I was ringing him up out of the blue announcing “I’m yer man!”. I had been booked into do a gig at Fizzle involving two laptops. The guy who I was doing it with couldn’t make it so I changed the act into an avant garde rock’n’roll outfit that involved a bit of spoken word amongst other things. Steve Tromans happened to be in the audience that night and as a result of hearing me banter asked me to audition for the Howl project. We did the first gig on January 24th in the CBSO centre to a packed house. Since then we have performed Howl in Cheltenham Jazz festival, St Andrews poetry festival, Aldeburg poetry festival, the Vortex Jazz club and an impromptu performance at Glastonbury festival. On Wednesday night we perform it in the Crescent Arts Centre.

To be part of this project with these great musicians and to be able to contribute to the communication of this very great work by Ginsberg is without doubt one of the most significant and rewarding activities in my life so far.