'If you must write prose and poems, the words you use should be your own...'

Sad news - Tim Cross has died. In addition to being T.V. Smith's long-time musical collaborator (an association that goes all the way back to the second Adverts album 'Cast Of Thousands') he also worked with artists as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, Mike Oldfield and The Skids. There's an excellent Louder than War piece on him here, and a thread on T.V.'s website forum here shows just how much the fans thought of him. A very sad loss.


Malcolm Owen died 32 years ago on Saturday (32 years! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Actually it still flies when you're not having fun as well...) so this seems like a good time to mention that a Facebook page has been set up as a tribute - you can find it here, and although I'm not the World's biggest Facebook fan I must say that it's great to see that one of the greatest punk rock frontmen of them all hasn't been forgotten.

In the meantime your humble narrator has been guilty of the sin of counting his chickens before they were hatched (I'd changed my guitar strings and everything!) by saying in these hallowed pages that he had a gig with Utter Madness this week; it was due to be an outdoor show (you know what's coming next now don't you?) at Cliveden House on Friday, and it was cancelled on the morning of the event due to the house grounds being waterlogged. Bugger! Now I really am taking this personally... given the atrocious weather we've been having lately I guess it's hardly surprising, but it's disappointing all the same. And that means I've had getting on for 30 shows cancelled in the last couple of months! No wonder I've got no money... still Wednesday's Flying Squad rehearsal went well (we've got a show next month with Clash tribute band The Clashed at Tropic At Ruislip) and I'm gigging with Ruts D.C. this coming week (indeed I'm leaving for rehearsal when I finish typing this) so that's something to really look forward to. As I said last time - you have to stay optimistic...

And last night it was time for my my latest stint on Music Scene Investigation. I made a 'surprise' appearance last month (it was the night England played Italy in the European Championships which might have had an adverse effect on their ability to get a guest that night?!?) and I always enjoy contributing to the show as if nothing else it's helped me more-or-less understand what a podcast is! The three songs presented to us this time were probably the most, shall we say, challenging ones that I've yet encountered:- 'song 1' was instrumental apart from a voiceover in the middle and sounded like it had been mixed by Beethoven, 'song 2' featured a woefully out of tune guitar and 'song 3' was of such poor audio quality that it was hard to tell exactly what was going on*. By default we voted the first one 'Song Of The Week' but it was very much the lesser of three evils. Still it was an enjoyable show (from my point of view at least!) and plans are afoot for me to make more contributions to the website - more news as and when I have it, as they say...
*And we've since discovered that this track contained a sample from an Adele track, and as such was illegible for inclusion in the programme. We were trying to work out what it had reminded us of!