'Weren't you here last night?'

Another busy few days with very little blogging time - well, it's better than having nothing to do isn't it?

With the first ever Ruts D.C. acoustic show upcoming on Monday 10th February at The 12 Bar Club in London Segs, Dave and myself met up on Tuesday morning armed with two acoustic guitars and a variety of percussion instruments to put together a set for said show. A few hours later it was all starting to make sense - some unlikely songs from the band's illustrious back catalogue may well find their way to the stage alongside the more familiar material, and we all agreed that it should be a very interesting evening. Segs and myself found ourselves at The 12 Bar Club that night too, along with Ruts D.C. (and quite a few other people's) sound man Nick and Tara from The Duel (she's putting the Monday night shows together for 13 weeks following our gig) ostensibly to discuss the show but somewhat inevitably to also have far too much to drink. Well, I certainly did. Ooops! The next day in Balcony Shirts was a little, shall we say, fragmented from my point of view, as well it might have been...

On Thursday Ruts D.C. were back in the familiar surroundings of The Music Complex in Deptford - this time Segs and myself had electric instruments and Dave was back behind a drum kit for a rehearsal that saw us continue to work on new material as well as revise songs from last year's live shows and try a few more tunes from the back catalogue. Any or all of the material attempted might find it's way to the stage at this coming weekend's German shows - and it might not as well! On the way home I stopped off at The Ship in Wardour Street for a birthday drink with Richard England of Cadiz Music - when I left things were in full swing, and Richard certainly seemed to be having a good time. Excellent!

Sam, Leigh and Pete
prop each other up after
an epic BTZ rehearsal.

By an odd twist of fate I played two consecutive shows with two different bands at The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham on Friday and Saturday. The first night featured The Upper Cut (our singer Terry was suffering from the full horror of ManFlu but gave a good performance all the same) while Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks gave a suitably energetic show on the second night. And today Back To Zero had their first rehearsal of the year - we've got a gig in Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday 15th February and with regular bassman Johnny Squirrel unavailable for the show friend-of-the band  Pete Jones (he used to play in Public Image ltd - excellent!) has stepped into the fray alongside founder members Sam and Andy. Judging by how he played today he's going to make a very good job of things. I also recorded some guitar parts for an upcoming 7'' vinyl single - more news on that in the not-too-distant future.

Ok - this week more studio stuff, more rehearsing, and I'm playing with Big Al and co. in Colnbrook at Ye Olde George Inn (again!) on Sunday afternoon - if I get back from Germany in time...