Youth Tunez

Well, what a couple of days. I found something wonderful, lost something valuable and had a rollercoaster of emotions.

Youth Tunez, well the name is self explanatory, is an Asian Christian Youth network, when I say ‘is’ that is different from before Tuesday 31^st July as before then, I would have said ‘will be’. Youth Tunez was launched on Tuesday 31^st July in Slough by the lovely Michelle Gill and her auntie Aster. Why I am telling you this is probably quite obvious due to the nature of this website, but what was I doing at the launch of an Asian Christian Youth network, being neither a youth or Asian? Well I was being a Christian, and being a good friend of Michelle, I took along a PA and AV system to help the show run smoothly.

We set off on our great journey, in 2 cars full of anticipation, PA kit and nerves as this was to be a great show, I was confident we had everything and knew the ropes, others were more nervous about impressions and how it would run. My mate Joe who kindly came along to watch was on fire as we came up for a wide game around Coventry to amuse new students, familiarise them with Coventry and offer them the opportunity to win great prizes. We talked in the car and were warned of people who think they know everything who try to take over the place, with that in mind we entered Slough.

“Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!”

Slough, John Betjeman (1937)

(due to a striking coincidence I had involvement in helping to create a CD of John Betjeman’s lesser known poems for the Edinburgh fringe of 2007 read by Lance Pierson, funny how names pop up like London buses, coming along in pairs (not arriving late))

Now, Slough is not one of the nicest places in the world but I hardly think bombing the place would improve it. If anything, bombing a place makes it a lot worse, as the Americans and the terrorists have kindly shown us, mind you, perhaps there is psychology going on, by eagerly inviting bombing, terrorist's targets are moved, as the possibility of actually benefiting a government through an attack becomes a real one. Of course this possibility has always existed, hence the theories of economic imperialism in the 1890s and conspiracy theories such as, that the aerial attacks on the World Trade Centre were staged to allow America to build an oil empire in the Middle East, but few defence academics have written about national defence being sought through poetry. Thankfully the ploy has worked, the pen is mightier than the sword and there is a place where we could do the gig.

As we turned up the road leading to Baylis house I saw what can only be described as a little beauty of a find on the right hand side, “Hughenden Road leading to Aylesbury Crescent”, what a sight! I exclaimed, “we have got to go to that place and get a picture” Michelle laughed without knowing that I would not leave Slough without doing so or what she had just caught a glimpse of. Joe made a great point that my assumption that all Aylesburys must be in some way associated with the original Aylesbury to be false. What if the ethos of an Aylesbury copy was copied, the new place would be incredibly unlike the original Aylesbury? Well its like the old gas problem, what if 100ml of helium were put in 1l of oxygen which was then put into 10l of nitrogen. No matter how much gas you take out of the resulting mixture, a proportionate amount of helium would be in that mixture allowing you to see the origin of the source.

Baylis House was OK, we sorted out the un hoovered carpet and got rid of the unwanted stage rapidly without much bother, edited down 2 tunes to be played, so that we wouldn’t have to cue the tracks up during the performance and went off to get suited and booted for the performance, smooth.

Joe found out that it wasn’t just a gig he was going to watch and became the night’s AV engineer. He did an excellent job working with helpful translators so that Punjabi and Urdu songs could be projected in time with the singing and not by pure guesswork.

The gig went smoothly except for a numpty man who turned up with a poorly mastered CD at the last minute. He insisted on fiddling with the sound desk and made his whole act turn into a cringe worthy embarrassment as he insisted on turning up the CD when it was obviously clipping, actually moving knobs on the sound desk himself to make it worse, and making a horrible sound. Then for the second track, demanding a loud volume, then standing there in silence for around 30 seconds, rabbit in headlights style making cryptic hand movements and asking stupid questions like “has this mixer got any special effects on this track?”???? as if it were my fault. No mate your track just sounded as it would in any CD player, if you don’t like it, why did you want it played in the first place? Until some enthusiastic musicians leapt in so he could sing a little and feel better about himself. An Asian equivalent of John Betjeman perhaps? scorning something as horrible, only to desire to change it and inadvertantly ruin it further.

The nuts and bolts of the event were that people caught the vision of what Youth Tunez was and got to know each other a bit better, and this was achieved over food, excellently explained by Michelle’s brother Hanook, “well, this stuff is rice and the things in the rice are peas” and so on, Rebecca sorted me and Joe out with a less patronising picture of what we were eating and it ended up being Hanook who struggled with his dinner finding the curry far too hot. Joke.

We packed the car and headed off down the road for one mission only, to get home. But I reminded Michelle about our primary task and we turned into Aylesbury Crescent and got our photos, not much time for sight seeing as it was 11'o'clock at night and we were all tired and were busy analysing the event.


Note, this is the first Aylesbury that I have gone to see with someone else, therefore I am actually in the photo as Joe, not only acted as AV assistant, roadie, audio engineer but also moonlighted as a photographer on my camera phone. I initally experimented with taking pictures of Aylesburys with me in the photo but the results were gruesome and dodgy, me squinting into a camera or doing the bad, 'this shot is taken at the end of my arm' (which I suppose all photos are to an extent, in that you need a finger to press the shutter button) but you know what I mean.


2 days later, projector missing, help!

£1000 piece of equipment, gone

Nowhere to be seen

Not in church, my garage, or any car

No one remembers it going

No relative has it,

One place left to look.

Baylis House, Slough

The journey to Slough is rapid when combined with an anxious driver and a racing mind, one comment punctured the atmosphere, “There’s a sign for Amersham road, do you want to take a picture of that?”. She clearly missed the point of the whole journey, so projectorless we left Slough for a second time and wondering where or who is now benefiting from a new toy. Rock bottom. More details to follow.