At the edge

I've got no gigs this coming weekend - it's been quite a while since I've heard myself say that so I'm not going to complain too much (for once!) as it'll hopefully give me time to get all my stuff together for the upcoming Damned / Ruts D.C. tour. With this in mind Dave, Segs and myself met up on Thursday to discuss tactics for the shows - we also found time to look at some new song ideas, and with Segs and myself trading ideas on acoustic guitars the songs are shaping up to be much rockier than the 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' material. All good stuff, and lots to look forward to.

Friday night Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Three Wishes in Edgware. With England playing Chile down the road at Wembley Stadium we didn't start our first set until the game finished as it was on television in the venue and they were hoping for people who had attended the match would be coming down later - in the event we started to a fairly empty bar and finished to a fairly full one, which has to be better than the other way round doesn't it? It was my last show with the band until after the afore-mentioned tour (my good friend Pete will be depping for me in my absence) and it was an enjoyable enough affair without being anything too out of the ordinary, if you know what I mean. Still that's much better than it being a bad show!

I went to Tropic At Ruislip on Saturday evening to see Roadhouse. I've seen their name around regularly over the past few years and had always heard good things about them so it was good to get chance to finally catch a show - it would be churlish to suggest that the inclusion of two female vocalists in their line-up also effected my decision to attend, but I will admit that it didn't count against it... I guess you'd describe them as a 'blues rock' band, and overall it was a good show although it was rather hampered by a less-than-excellent sound - the girls's voices we often far too loud and had a somewhat 'boxy' sound while the guitars were nowhere near loud enough (after all, whoever heard of a guitar being too loud?!?) meaning that the band had less power than perhaps they might. Still as I say it was a good show - and it's always great to see a band that plays mostly it's own songs rather than cover versions. Well, I think that it is... and while I was there I spoke to the promoters Philip and Dave about a Gypie Mayo tribute show that'll be happening on March 2nd. It should feature The Flying Squad and The Band Of Sceptics, with the proceeds going to the hospice that cared for Gypie during his illness. I'm helping to organise it with Band Of Sceptics mainman Pete Sargeant, so expect any amount of increasingly desperate 'please come to our gig'-type publicity from me nearer to the time.

And last night I once again returned to The Three Wishes jam night with Pete and Big Al - this time we corrupted Howard and Andy from the house band into playing 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Jilted John' with us - yes, you read that correctly. It's hard to imagine two more diverse songs isn't it? Well, that was the idea!  

Right - only a week-and-a-bit to go...