Operation Ivy

Towards the end of our (ahem) illustrious career myself and my buddies in The Price did a few gigs with a band called Blue Wail. They were very good - a bit rockier than us, very much aimed at the American market. They were often joined on backing vocals by their producer, a bearded gentleman who'd previously produced quite a few other bands including Dr. Feelgood, The Stranglers and The Buzzcocks. As you might imagine I found Martin Rushent to be a very interesting person, and he was also a very nice chap so it was sad to see that he'd died last week.

Meanwhile The Flying Squad supported Treason at Tropic At Ruislip on Friday night. We were a bit under-rehearsed (the gig came in at short notice and it was a chance for us to give new drummer Andy a run out) but our set that went down well with the audience although I felt we were a bit too loose to deserve such a good reaction. Still the customer is always right so I'll stop moaning (for once!) and just say that I'm really looking forward to our gig there next month (the 15th since you've asked) supporting The Small Fakers. I hadn't seen Stuart Monks (or 'Stuart the guitar repair man' as he's often known in these hallowed pages) for a while and he was on good form as ever, and I bumped into Chris from The Members at the bar who said some very complimentary things about our band so maybe it was a good gig after all? I don't know enough about the type of music Treason play to be able to say whether they're good at it or not and it was all a bit heavy for me, but there was a fair amount of headbanging going on down the front so I guess they must have been doing something right.

Saturday saw The Upper Cut made their first appearance at The Uxbridge Ivy Leaf Club. It was one of those strange gigs where you're seemingly ignored all night then 4 numbers from the end people start dancing, demand encores even when you're packing your gear away then tell you that you're the best band that's ever played there and offer you another gig. Weird. We hadn't played together since the Dolphin gig last month so were a bit shaky to begin with but got it all together in the end. As we arrived there were three police cars outside, with a young man clearly the worse for wear having trouble standing up and several people hanging around and talking to the policemen; as I carried my amp through them they were wrapping the young man in that silver foil that you see marathon runners being wrapped in at the end of the race. Like I say, it was all a bit weird. Oh and Stu turned up again - none for ages and then two come along at once, as the old saying goes.

There's a T.V. Smith gig to look forward to this week, on Thursday at The 12 Bar Club (T.V. gigs are always events to look forward to in my little world, but I've not played the venue before so that's another reason to look forward to it) and Awaken are playing at The Dolphin on Friday. Oh and we've got Pimp My Jazz at The Load Of Hay on Sunday. Come on down, as another old saying goes...