Titanic days

I've not seen or heard the news much lately, and so have only just heard that Mick Farren died last month after collapsing on stage at The Borderline in London during a gig with The Deviants. I remember reading his work in The New Musical Express back in the day, and 'The Titanic Sails At Dawn' remains a classic piece of pre-punk angst that rails against the complacency then rife among the successful rock bands and artists of the day. Reading it now it still seems to me as though it could have been written yesterday - nothing ever really changes does it? And Mel Smith has died - I loved 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' in the late '70s / early '80s with it's all-too-accurate parodies and outrageous (for the time) portrayals of the politicians of the day. We could do with a show like that now don't you think?

Meanwhile Music Ruined My Life has continued posting old Price material. It's strange in some ways to see it there, and yet some of the comments left by readers show that people do still seem to enjoy our work. If only there had been more of them when we were together! You can find our second single and mini-album alongside this compilation album (which I must admit I'd all but forgotten about - it's very good though!) on there now - once again have a look and a listen and see what you think.

Only one gig for your humble narrator since the last posting but it certainly qualifies as a good one. Utter Madness had been booked to play an outdoor show at Cliveden House last July, but the show was cancelled due to the ground being waterlogged. The band were promised a rebooking this year, and that promise came good this weekend when we played there as part of the 'Cliveden Rocks' weekend. Paul from The Lettuceheads is on drums, Richard is back on keyboards with Ian on saxophone, Jon on bass and Tony as our surrogate Suggs, and we're on first with Queen B topping the bill. There was an odd moment during our soundcheck when it was raining to the left of the stage but dry and sunny to the right - fortunately the weather stayed good all evening other than that. By the time we started our show at 7 o'clock there were apparently around 2,000 people in attendance, and they saw a good-going-on-great-in-places set of Madness and ska classics. Having said that I made a terrible job of 'It Must Be Love' (I think that it's always better to admit it when it's your fault!) and there was the odd moment of madness (if you see what I mean) here and there but overall it was the best of our three shows this year, and it went down very well with the assembled multitude which is only ever the main thing. Queen B certainly went down well too - I'll never be the World's biggest Queen fan (now that my friends just might be the understatement of the year so far!) but what they did they did very well.

And the local paper liked them and indeed us, as you can see from this review...

And it's time (at last!) for some more Ruts D.C. gigs, beginning with The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool this coming weekend. We're on at midnight on Saturday (yeah alright, I know that means that we're actually playing first thing on Sunday morning - stop being so pedantic!) on The Bizarre Bazaar stage, and I have just - just! - got in from rehearsing all day for the show. It should be a great weekend - if you're going then I'll see you there...