No sleep 'til Twickenham?

Well I'd be lying if I said that The Troggs were one of my all time favourite bands, but I was still saddened to hear of the death of Reg Presley. I saw the band live once, rather implausibly supporting Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow at The Wembley Arena in (I think) the early 1980s. I remember him saying something like 'Ritchie only called us this week to offer us the gig' and in doing so sounded almost as bemused as around 90% of the audience were over their presence at the gig. Incidentally they were very good, and he always seemed to me to be quite a character, what with his research into crop circles and his contributions to the once-heard-never-forgotten Troggs Tapes. And let's face it, 'Wild Thing' was a bit of a classic wasn't it?

Two good gigs this weekend for your humble narrator, the first of which was with Big Al Reed And The Cardiac Arrests at The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham. We had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening during which Al produced a piece of paper with suggestions and ideas for a new name for the band. He seemed very pleased with 'Big Al Reed And The Blistering Buicks' to which he then added 'featuring General Leigh' to the amusement of all concerned including myself. I thought 'The Alpines' was pretty good myself but what do I know? Anyway we've not had a competition here for a while so let's have one now - can you think of a name for the band? As always answers on a postcard please, usual address...

See you down the front!

I feel as though I've spent a lot of time at this venue lately, which is no bad thing although it can get a bit noisy in there sometimes. Mind you judging by this poster it's certainly going to get a lot noisier if the show advertised as happening on February 16th is anything to go by... I should point out that according to other leaflets around the pub Cry Wolf are playing on that date - I wonder why the poster says Motorhead? Very strange. Anyway this was definitely our best show to date despite Terry the bass feeling a bit under the weather - by the end of the night he was virtually slumped over his bass amplifier. This is an unfortunate situation to be in at the best of times, but it was made all the more unfortunate by the landlady's enthusiastic demands for us to keep playing a long time after we were due to have finished. It's usually a good thing to see the boss of a pub that you're playing in up and dancing, but I'm sure that in this case Terry might not agree. In the meantime Pete joined us on guitar for a few songs (he's going to be depping for me next month while I'm away on Ruts D.C. duty) and Big Al on top form throughout, and although I feel that we could still benefit from a few more rockier songs it was still a good gig.

On Saturday evening The Upper Cut returned to The Dolphin in Uxbridge for the first time this year. It had been crowded when we played there on Boxing Day but it was absolutely packed this time which it'd be nice to think was due to our pulling power but actually had more to do with there being three birthday parties taking place in the building. We'd also had a rehearsal earlier in the week during which we ran through several new songs all of which made it into the show. Terry absolutely excelled on vocals (particularly on one of the new numbers 'I've Been Drinking' which on this showing could become something of a showcase for him), Terry the bass was feeling (and indeed playing) a lot better and Roger was as solid as ever behind the drum kit, and with much audience merriment throughout a great gig ensued. It's a great band to play in - we really must get some more gigs... and my third rehearsal of the week took place yesterday, when I got together with Sam and Andy from Back To Zero to work on more material for our upcoming Mods Mayday 2013 show in Cambridge. We've looked at all the likely material now, so I'm intending to spend some time over the next few days going through it and working out my parts. But there are more songs to look at this week, with the afore-mentioned Ruts D.C. shows to prepare for (more about them in due course) and a gig depping with The Pistols for the first time in ages this Friday at the splendidly-named Fat Lil's in Witney. Now that's something to really look forward to!