Silver jubilee

With The Price's 25th anniversary gigs looming large on your humble narrator's horizon (see the burst of shameless self publicity to the left!) I've been attempting to put the best part of 40 (40!) songs into 2 playable sets, bearing in mind that we're intending to not repeat a song over the course of the weekend. It shouldn't be too hard should it? Well perhaps it isn't and I'm just making it difficult for myself (as usual!) but I found myself lying awake at 4 o'clock the other morning wondering if we should perhaps play a shorter set on Sunday so that people can get home early, or maybe we should just start earlier, and if we do play a longer set on Saturday should we include all the reggae songs then, or the slow songs, and where do we put cover versions... like I say, it should be easy. Maybe we should play them chronologically? Or alphabetically? Or draw them out of a hat? Help!

Hope you can make it along to one, other, or both shows - it'll be good to see you. Then again to paraphrase Keith Richards, it'll be good to see anyone! Oh and it's East's birthday on Saturday. Now there's a thought...

Meanwhile back in the real world (such that it is) it's nearing the end of the financial year; with this in mind I spent the best part of 2 days this week attempting to put 12 month's worth of receipts in order; with the front room floor covered (and I mean covered) in pieces of paper of various sizes I heard myself say 'this would be a lot easier if you did this once a month rather than once a year' out loud. Let's hope I was listening... and I earned a lot less in the last 12 months than I did in the previous tax year. A LOT less. Losing the Pro Music work really did take it's toll (remind me to tell you the story one day!) We played significantly less gigs too, and pretty much all the money I earned in the run up to Christmas went towards paying a £2000+ tax bill. Bah! I feel as though I'm running to stand still (as U2 once sang) although I'm sure there are lots of people in much worse situations so I'm not going to complain. Well, not much anyway.

Last night it was time for me to return to the Youngblood fold (I've missed the last couple of gigs as I've been gigging elsewhere) for a show at The Misty Moon in Bethnal Green, where myself, Terry the bass, Roger the drums and Terry the singer played two 45 minute sets to a shifting audience of East End characters and misfits, most if not all of whom seemed to enjoy our efforts almost as much as we did. Our new friend Gavin (I think that was his name, he was a little, shall we say, confused which made him rather difficult to understand) asked Terry if he could sing 'Wonderful Tonight' with us and delivered an unforgettable rendition which many if not all of those who witnessed are probably desperately trying to forget even as we speak. Still he seemed happy enough... oh and I met a chap called Terry (this is getting confusing!) who said he was a big Alice Cooper fan (good man!) and then asked if we could play 'School's Out' (we couldn't although maybe we should) and then asked for something by The Who - as I started 'Substitute' we began windmilling furiously, much to the consternation of pretty much everybody within 3 yards or so of him. Again he seemed happy enough, as was the pub guv'nor who wants us to play there once a month. Top man!

As we were leaving Terry came over to roar his approval and ask where we were going back to; when I said Uxbridge he looked a bit confused so I said something like 'it's near Heathrow' to which he replied 'I was over near there the other day, in Reading - it was alright, a bit like Dagenham on wheels'.

I hope he's there next time.