Blog: People I Have ROCKED With

Now that we've dealt with some of the CAVEATS around my ROCK dataset, asking What Is A Gig? and What Is A Band?, it is time to look at some actual STATS.

I thought we'd start with people because, well, people are what people are interested in. Over the past few months I've been diligently going through every single gig in my database, trying to add in details of who played. Sometimes this has been PEASY (Totally Acoustic gigs especially so, as I have PODCASTS for those), sometimes TRICKY (there has been a LOT of googling for gigs and festivals, with a surprisingly massive lack of success) and sometimes it has been IMPOSSIBLE (especially gigs pre-internet). However, I have done my very best and so can now present you with the first of THREE might data tables!

Top 20 people I have done a gig with, either in the same band or on the same bill

Rank	Person/Band	Gigs
1	Steve Hewitt	178
2	Tim Pattison	165
3=	Francis Albert Machine	151
3=	Tom 'The Tiger' McClure	151
5	Emma Pattison	113
6	Doctor Kneel	99
7	Simon from Voon	58
8	Gavin Osborn	36
9	Pete Green	34
10	Chris Lawson	33
11	Tim Eveleigh	26
12	Jenny Lockyer	20
13	Jimmy McGee and/or The Bobby McGees	20
14	Mileage	18
15	Grace Petrie	18
16	Chris T-T	16
17	Jon from Finnegan's Wake	16
18	Matt Tiller	15
19	Winston Echo	15
20	Julie from John Sims	14

Have you ever SEEN such a mighty list of ROCK LEGENDS?!? The first point to take out of this is that we must all congratulate Mr Steve Hewitt, as the VERY LUCKY person who has done the MOST gigs with me - 17.8% of ALL of them! This is largely due to our many SHOWS together, but also helped along by the various SPOTS we did elsewhere, usually in an effort to PROMOTE said shows. One of the GRATE things about doing this data entry and analysis has been being reminded of some of the WEIRD stuff we've done over time, including a surprisingly high number of Actual Comedy Shows around 2010. What were we thinking?

After Steve we can see that The Validators take up the next five places, and congratulations are very much due to Tim, who WINS (and I do mean WINS) here, partly due to our previous collaboration in The Council, and partly due to his ongoing determination to DO GIGS. It's delightful to see Frankie and Tom on equal footing, but we shall delve into that, and other matters arising, in our NEXT table.

Top 10 people I have played in the same band with

Rank	Person/Band	Gigs
1	Steve Hewitt	178
2	Tim Pattison	162
3	Tom 'The Tiger' McClure	147
4	Francis Albert Machine	135
5	Emma Pattison	113
6	Doctor Kneel	82
7	Simon Voon	57
8	Chris Lawson	20
9	Mileage	18
10=	Sorted Supremo Dave Dixey	10
10=	Jon Finnegan's Wake	10

This table shows people I have COLLABORATED with in gigs i.e. usually in the same band or sometimes with them coming on during a set and doing a BIT, or me doing the similar. Here we can see that Steve's numbers are unchanged but that Tim's drop slightly due, I think, to there being a few occasions when Voon supported Prolapse. Interestingly, Frankie drops into fourth place here, as many of our gigs together have been with him doing Frankie Machine gigs, often on TOUR, whereas Tom stays in third - we HAVE done gigs in seperate bands when I've supported Lazarus Clamp, but we've ALSO done several duo gigs over the years. Emma, meanwhile, remains on the exact same number of gigs - she, like Steve, has only ever done gigs with ME in this database, ESCHEWING other people. Thanks chums!

After them we see Neil and Simon from VOON, with Chris (also occasionally from Voon) just behind. If I had managed to keep more accurate records of what I was up to in the nineties then I suspect that these scores in particular would be higher, especially for Neil, with whom I did the vast majority of my early ROCKING in Voon and also The Council. The rest of this top 10 is also completed by OLD-TIMERS, including Mileage from The Masters Of Nothing and Durham Ox Singers (and often backing vocals at family occasions!), Dave from the aforesaid Durham Ox Singers, and Jon from Finnegan's Wake and various early bands when I was first learning to play BASS. Thanks to all!

Finally, let's have a look at the people who have been on the same BILL as me over the years.

Top 10 people I played on the same bill with (but not in the same band)

Rank	Person/Band	Gigs
1	Gavin Osborn	34
2	Pete Green	33
3	Tim Eveleigh	25
4	Francis Albert Machine	22
5	Doctor Kneel	21
6	Jenny Lockyer	20
7	Grace Petrie	18
8	Jimmy McGee/Bobby McGees	17
9	Chris T-T	16
10=	Matt Tiller	15
10=	Winston Echo	15

There are a LOT of people in the actual dataset - 411 are named (compared to 46 people who I've been in a band with), with the code "OTHER" used for around 300 different gigs too. It's been lovely looking back at some of the more obscure names in these lists. I always hope there'll be somebody I played with once twenty years ago who is now SUPER FAMOUS so that I can show off about it... but if there is, I haven't spotted them!

The big winner (and IT IS WINNING) for this table is Gavin Osborn, who just pips Pete Green to the top spot by a single gig. Tim Eveleigh comes in next, largely due to the many times I have played at his Freedom Of Expression gigs, where he has ACTIVELY COMPERED. After Frankie and Neil we then get Jenny Lockyer, who as played many of those same Croydon-area events, followed by another touring buddy Grace Petrie. Grace is as close as I get to Someone I Played With Who Later Became Super Famous - I particularly like the description of her as "a young girl singing HARROWINGLY" in the blog about our first gig together!

The bottom half of the top ten is a luxury selection of GOOD EGGS - General Touring Buddy Mr Matt Tiller is here nestled alongside Jimmy from The Bobby McGees, Chris T-T and Winston Echo as people with whom I have ROCKED with in all sorts of places in many different formats over the years. I'm very pleased INDEED to see ALL of these people here, I really have been BLESSED to have played with so many excellent people, and there are many more in the full list. Alas we do not really have time to get into that here, as we have VENUES to look at - next time!

posted 25/1/2023 by MJ Hibbett

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