Liner Notes for The Scheme Of The Concealed Skiffle Tapes
Liner notes for my detective story, The Scheme Of The Concealed Skiffle Tapes
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“What exactly is a skiffle?” asks Pia at the end of the story. The best answer would be to play you some music, start with Lonnie Donegan, “The King of Skiffle,” and see where that leads you.
Like all the best British musical movements, this began as an American genre, a bit blues, a bit jazz, and an emphasis on such instruments as the washboard, the jug, the musical saw and other non-traditional improvised noisemakers. Donegan, part of the trad jazz revival, started a skiffle band as a side project and had enormous success. His version of Rock Island Line was a huge hit in 1956. It inspired thousands of young men (mostly) to buy guitars and learn to play. When the folk revival, the blues boom, and then rock’n’roll came to the UK this pool of guitarists fuelled their growth.
That’s what skiffle enthusiasts will tell you anyway, a real historian could dig into the sales of washboards and jugs throughout the fifties, maybe see if comedians were making jokes about lads stealing their Mum’s washing and kitchen equipment. That’s more research than I’m doing; one step more than the story uses is as much as I find sufficient to give nuance and background.
Taj Hennings career isn’t based on anyone in particular, though it sort of follows the trajectory of jazz in the UK. It was big in the fifties, kept getting eclipsed by other musical genres but never died away. Courtney Pine’s 1986 debut album Journey To The Urge Within brought jazz back to the mainstream, leading to Taj Hennings and other (fictional and non-fictional) jazz legends having a career revival in the late 80s.
Simon Tosca is very much not based on a real person, he’s more a walking stereotype of the awful music industry producer/manager. Controlling, predatory contracts, keeping his clients dazzled by stardom and excitement while he rakes in the cash and the kudos. Vindictive too, refusing to release recordings because he holds a grudge. The kind of person that gives making music a bad name.
On the other hand his ill-gotten gains have paid for a big old country house, a place where bands can record things and work on music, where he can hold ridiculous themed celebrity parties, and of course a great setting for a heist story.
Heist story was on the cards from the start. Lacey is a private detective. In theory she will only work on things the police won’t. And of course the police won’t do anything that would break the law.
Of course.
So Lacey can work in what is, to be generous, a grey area of legality; retrieving something that doesn’t belong to the current holder. Possession is nine-tenths of the law isn’t an actual legal axiom, but proving that something someone else holds doesn’t belong to them and instead belongs to you requires a lot more legal effort than if you have it in hand and want to prove title.
Anyway I did some research on the size of recording tapes, and because you’re recording several tracks at once, one for each instrument and voice and all that, they’re thick, and they’re long and fat and heavy. Obviously this makes it hard to carry them about, and that is always a bonus for a heist story. Stealing something you can hide in your pocket can make for some fine fiction; but if you’re going to do a heist story it should always be something bulky, heavy and awkward. One day I will do the theft of a railway locomotive I’ve been plotting; there’s a few logistical problems to iron out, obviously. If you can write it though, take that idea for free.
Lacey Lee Burglar Extraordinaire. It was bound to happen. My plan was to have each story be in a slightly different genre, but I’ve not really changed the style thanks to [see state of the world this year], just the furniture of the story.
This one was double length due to my own internal word-count metrics claiming I was short. I could explain but I doubt anyone is interested, even I barely care about it right now. Anyway, thanks for reading.
****
“What exactly is a skiffle?” asks Pia at the end of the story. The best answer would be to play you some music, start with Lonnie Donegan, “The King of Skiffle,” and see where that leads you.
Like all the best British musical movements, this began as an American genre, a bit blues, a bit jazz, and an emphasis on such instruments as the washboard, the jug, the musical saw and other non-traditional improvised noisemakers. Donegan, part of the trad jazz revival, started a skiffle band as a side project and had enormous success. His version of Rock Island Line was a huge hit in 1956. It inspired thousands of young men (mostly) to buy guitars and learn to play. When the folk revival, the blues boom, and then rock’n’roll came to the UK this pool of guitarists fuelled their growth.
That’s what skiffle enthusiasts will tell you anyway, a real historian could dig into the sales of washboards and jugs throughout the fifties, maybe see if comedians were making jokes about lads stealing their Mum’s washing and kitchen equipment. That’s more research than I’m doing; one step more than the story uses is as much as I find sufficient to give nuance and background.
Taj Hennings career isn’t based on anyone in particular, though it sort of follows the trajectory of jazz in the UK. It was big in the fifties, kept getting eclipsed by other musical genres but never died away. Courtney Pine’s 1986 debut album Journey To The Urge Within brought jazz back to the mainstream, leading to Taj Hennings and other (fictional and non-fictional) jazz legends having a career revival in the late 80s.
Simon Tosca is very much not based on a real person, he’s more a walking stereotype of the awful music industry producer/manager. Controlling, predatory contracts, keeping his clients dazzled by stardom and excitement while he rakes in the cash and the kudos. Vindictive too, refusing to release recordings because he holds a grudge. The kind of person that gives making music a bad name.
On the other hand his ill-gotten gains have paid for a big old country house, a place where bands can record things and work on music, where he can hold ridiculous themed celebrity parties, and of course a great setting for a heist story.
Heist story was on the cards from the start. Lacey is a private detective. In theory she will only work on things the police won’t. And of course the police won’t do anything that would break the law.
Of course.
So Lacey can work in what is, to be generous, a grey area of legality; retrieving something that doesn’t belong to the current holder. Possession is nine-tenths of the law isn’t an actual legal axiom, but proving that something someone else holds doesn’t belong to them and instead belongs to you requires a lot more legal effort than if you have it in hand and want to prove title.
Anyway I did some research on the size of recording tapes, and because you’re recording several tracks at once, one for each instrument and voice and all that, they’re thick, and they’re long and fat and heavy. Obviously this makes it hard to carry them about, and that is always a bonus for a heist story. Stealing something you can hide in your pocket can make for some fine fiction; but if you’re going to do a heist story it should always be something bulky, heavy and awkward. One day I will do the theft of a railway locomotive I’ve been plotting; there’s a few logistical problems to iron out, obviously. If you can write it though, take that idea for free.
Lacey Lee Burglar Extraordinaire. It was bound to happen. My plan was to have each story be in a slightly different genre, but I’ve not really changed the style thanks to [see state of the world this year], just the furniture of the story.
This one was double length due to my own internal word-count metrics claiming I was short. I could explain but I doubt anyone is interested, even I barely care about it right now. Anyway, thanks for reading.
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