Looks like you guys are having a good time, nice pictures mates.
Ennio, I don’t think its age. Everybody gets like that after they’ve had a few drinks 
Ennio, I don’t think its age. Everybody gets like that after they’ve had a few drinks
Or after being trapped in conversation with me for more than 10 minutes.
Nice to have met up with those I already know and those I didn’t. Had a great time and it was great to meet up with some friends I haven’t seen for a while.
I’ve finally got back to my comfy chair and can jot some thoughts down.
Firstly thanks to Austin for organising this 8) - (and keeping the prices low) - and I hope it leads on to more success if he feels like doing this sort of thing again.
The venue was pretty good - a smallish, comfortable cinema that had a bar attached (and allowed you to take a drink in with you). 
I was never gonna watch every film or go to all the conference panels (Phil went to more of the conferency bits). I pretty much just visited the Sir Frayling lecture and the Dan Van Husen bits - and I chose those films I most wanted to see (for the most part).
Day 1 - a couple of beers with Phil to take the edge of the experience that is Luton in the rain - (imagine a damp version of ‘The Unhappy Place’) then Navajo Joe, which was great fun to see on the big(gish) screen.
As we’d both last seen FAFDM in the stone circle in Almeria, and thought we maybe shouldn’t taint this memory yet, so we snuck away for fodder n more beers.
We then poured ourselves back into our seats, in the right frame of mind to enjoy a late showing of The Mercenary.
Day 2 - turned up in the afternoon for a chat with Malcolm and Jayne who had brought a small part of his vast and blokey collection of (mainly) Clinty/Leone stuff to decorate the foyer - ‘Cardboard Clint’ of course agreeing to pose with us for the photies. These nuggets of his included lobby cards, records and posters - and added a nice touch to the place.
A rather nice t-shirt to celebrate the event was only a fiver, so a couple are purchased to add to our sartorial elegance to impress the local populous. 8)
Sir Christopher (despite looking a bit old to ya, Ennioo) was very bright and entertaining - happy to chat and full of enthusiasm. His talk “The Quiet Man Gets Noisy: Sergio Leone, the Italian Western and Ireland” seemed very interesting - so I decided to stay awake for all of it, and ask Phil about the big words later.
Then beers in the bar with Phil, Yod and his mate Rob - and a bit of posing for those photies that you’ve seen.
…So, I’m at the bar, and this fellah next to me says (slightly accented) “Do you like spaghetti westerns?” Thinking “Of course I fuckin’ do”, I politely replied “Yeah… you?” “Oh yes - I was in 22”… “Hello Dan” says I.
GBU was next up - and although too long and drawn out for my tastes (and I don’t just mean the added cave bits) - it had to be done, particularly as I couldn’t be arsed to watch a late eve showing of The Hills Run Red when Friday night in Luton had so much to offer… 
In fact, what it had to offer was both Yod and Phil being temporarily barred from a local pub due to dress code (Yod) which we blagged round - and then strangely it was El Topo’s fault for Gentleman Phil getting the grief off the bouncers (so much for your daughter not thinking me the “gentleman” eh?). Anyway all ended well, and beers were consumed to make up for this earlier shock. :o
And so to bed… to dream spaghetti dreams.
Day 3 - Dan Van Husen’s mid afternoon Q and A session was led by Austin, included input by Sir Christopher (who hadn’t just hung around for his bit, and wasn’t selling anything) - and both Phil and myself asked a question apiece - bearing in mind mine was in relation to PLL (Husen was in More Dollars For The McGregors) we got a ten minute reply that didn’t mention him once! Phil faired little better with relevance of answer about Lorenzo Robledo - even though Dan had mentioned him first. ;D
It didn’t matter though, DvH was highly entertaining, and prone to going off on any number of anecdotal tangents - that fed us some ‘nuggets’ of information, that although not prompted, were lapped up all the same.
He was fully aware that he was a bloke that turned up to be shot - in the mould of Phil’s fave Lorenzo, and to illustrate this we were shown a clip of DvH opening the proceedings in Light the Fuse… Sartana is Coming, and beating a woman about - until Garko dispatches him within the first 5 minutes. But it was great to hear some of this background stuff from someone as unassumingly honest as he was. Genuinely good stuff, DvH. 8) Thanks.
Beer - Death Rides A Horse then more beer… then The Great Silence (which I’ve really watched for the last time now)… and leaving The Big Gundown for Yod, Phil and myself sneak off to accidently find Luton’s best synth duo … in what otherwise would have been a decent boozer. Many beers are consumed whilst we ‘disseminate’ and ‘cascade’ what we’ve gleaned from our experiences, and we raise yet another glass to Austin - well done, fellah!
Sounds great Reverend.
I hope one day they have an event like this a bit closer to Manchester .
Thanks for the kind comments Reverend, and thanks to all who came along. All the feedback I’ve received has been very encouraging, and the people with the purse strings at the university appear to be happy. All of which means I’m hoping to do it again next year… once I’ve recovered.
Thankfully, the Rev has covered pretty much everything so I can play the lazy bugger and just add that it was a very fine weekend indeed and much kudos is due to Mr Fisher for organising a truly fabulous event.
As his holiness pointed out I did attend all of the academicy stuff and can honestly report that it was fascinating and, I felt, very accessible. There were presentations from various disciplines which ranged from the more obvious (film studies) to the genuinely surprising (comic book studies and political science) and I for one learned some very interesting stuff.
Events like these are at their best when serendipity plays its part and I think one of my favourite memories from it will be standing in the bar with the Rev and a Turkish academic who had given a talk on Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It turned out that our ecclesiastical leader had a copy of a Turkish western that the expert hadn’t seen (a copy is on its way to Ankara as we speak I believe) and that furthermore the Turkish doctor was something of a metal head and was a fan of the Rev’s album cover artworks. A small world indeed and not ‘very,very bad’ as Kinski would have had us believe but, on the contrary, quite lovely.
Anyway, the whole thing was a blast and I really would never have believed that 3 days spent in Luton could be that rewarding. I even gained a Ukelele from his holiness and have become an immediate convert to this lovely instrument’s charms and was finally able to deliver some gifts on behalf of our Portuguese compadre even if it did get me chucked out of a Wetherspoon’s (pub) for bringing alcohol onto the premises. What more could you ask of a weekend?
Well done Austin.
Highly entertaining synopses Rev and Phil. Sounded like a blast and something that I would’ve enjoyed. It also sounds like everybody was well inebriated for the precedings lol. I reckon if those were Canadian beers you boys were drinking you would’ve already been out of commission long before Husen gets shot in Light the Fuse!
How was the turnout? SWs outside of Leone’s films don’t really have the biggest audience so hopefully lots of people were interested and took something from it.
I’m guessing about 50 people signed up for the day sessions and maybe another 20-30 came just for the films.
The theatre was on the small side so it didn’t feel empty.
What do you reckon the theatre held, 250-300 seats maybe?
Around 200 at a guess.
[quote=“Phil H, post:68, topic:3021”]Events like these are at their best when serendipity plays its part …
I even gained a Ukelele from his holiness and have become an immediate convert[/quote]
Now to go off-topic as we so love to do…
…so I’m sitting in this hotel bar with Phil, and we’ve moved off spaghettis to music and Phil tells me he’s gonna get a uke, and I say he can have the one I’ve got with me as a pressie. So he says ok “How are these things tuned?” So I pull out a couple of bits of music I’ve printed off the net and show him the one that I’m learning - a lesser known early 70s ‘hit’… This one…
And, Phil goes… “You see where it says ‘sax break’ there…”
And, Phil goes… “You see where it says ‘sax break’ there…”
“…That’s my Dad that is.”
Very strange coincidence indeed. But a nice moment to discover his holiness was listening to my old man’s playing when we were mere youngsters.
But the serendipity keeps coming on this subject. I figured the youtube link the Rev embedded here would be Dad and Norman (Hurricane Smith) on the Johnny Carson show and so it was. I’ve seen it many times now. But what I wasn’t expecting was that down the right hand side was a link to another clip. This one from French TV in 1972 which I remember Dad describing to me but which I have never seen before. It was just posted recently and was a real treat for me to see for the first time after 41 years of waiting. Dad’s Sax sounds better in this one (I think it is taken straight from the record) although you can’t see his face so well as he is miniaturised on top of the juke box. Either way, I’d know the old duffer anywhere.
So thanks again Rev. If you hadn’t made this post I would never have happened upon the French TV clip that my old man still talks about doing to this day. He was 81 on Sunday by the way and has never owned a computer so I’m going to have to find some way of copying this clip off youtube and burning it onto a disc he can watch on his telly.
If you can stand the song again, here’s the clip in question.
What a great story. It’s nice to hear things like that.
Now to throw my bit in ;D
That Hurricane fella reminds me of…
I always thought his look was more akin to this fella myself
Just had a call from a guy who I sold alot of Eastwood posters to years ago called Malcolm who organised all the posters and stuff at this event. And some of my old posters were at the event (do not know which ones mind)…small world. He remembers speaking to Rod, Aarron and Phil.
Yes, I remember speaking to him. And I’m pretty sure The Rev has some pictures of him and his stuff. In fact it was his Clint Eastwood cardboard display thingee that we all posed in front of and that the Rev posted somewhere here. (me as half soldier)
He seemed like a nice fella and had some nice stuff too.
From Viz ;D
