Andrew Dubber

Every now and then I get asked to go somewhere nice and talk about things I’m interested in. Suits me.

Bath. It’s historic.

I had a really lovely day-and-a-bit in Bath this week. The town centre’s an absolute bombsite because of some major town centre shopping mall redevelopment, which is a real shame because it’s such a gorgeous city.

I took the train down on Wednesday afternoon because I was scheduled to speak first at a Musicians Union seminar that went on all day Thursday. You change at Bristol Temple Meads, which for me is hard to do — because as soon as I get to Bristol, I just want to get away from the train station and go hang out in the city. Such a cool town.

But I got back on the next train and found myself in a place that was clearly historic. There’s really no other word for it. All of the buildings, the layout of the streets, the pace of the city and the signs dotted around the place all made it entirely clear that this is a place with its roots a long time in the past, in a particularly scenic part of history.

I strolled up the hill and found my way to Dorian House, where I was staying.

My sleeping quarters

It turned out that Dorian House was owned by LSO cellist Tim Hugh, which was kind of nice. I stayed in the Grieg room, and naturally, every other room (there were 8 in all, I think) was named after a composer he liked. Nice to see Gershwin in the mix.

The view from my window was pretty great too. Here’s the garden out the back:

I got settled, and then I made my way back into the city to see the venue and have dinner with my hosts from the MU. We had a quiet drink at the Lamb and Lion, and then popped into the Thai Balcony for a meal. They were closing, so we ordered quickly (I had the scallops and Pad Thai noodles) before making our way back to the hotel.

In the morning, breakfast consisted of Eggs Benedict and coffee — and it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had eggs benedict. In fact, none of my hosts had ever heard of it. Oddly, a quick search online reveals that most people think you put ham or bacon under the poached eggs. Ridiculous. Eggs Benedict requires smoked salmon.

I sat there at breakfast, enjoying the fact that I was sitting across the table from a former bass player from the Damned (Paul Gray, my host from the MU), eating breakfast in the home of a concert cellist. Very odd.

And then it was off to the seminar.

Musicians of the South West region

I spoke for just over an hour — about the usual stuff: music, the internet, copyright, record labels and so on. People seemed pleased with what I had to say, and in the break afterwards, said nice things to me. Interestingly, the most common adjective people used was not ‘helpful’, ‘informative’ or ‘useful’ — but ‘entertaining’. I wonder if I should be concerned about that.

There followed a Q&A session, where I attempted to answer some questions (so, that would be a traditional Q&A session, then) and then lunch. The afternoon consisted of presentations from the Head of Music at Bath Spa University and representatives of various online music provision services 7Digital, Last.fm and We7, but I had to leave part way through the proceedings and get back to Birmingham.

Really liked Bath and I’d happily head back there again. But for now, it’s off to London then on to New York. I have more rooms full of people to talk to. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Tagged: Personal