Jet Boys, Joyriders and a jaunt to the seaside...

Well it's been a relatively quiet weekend here in mad-guitar-land - although given what's on the horizon this coming weekend that may not have been a bad thing, as Ruts D.C. are playing at The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool. We're playing an acoustic show at 9.30pm on Saturday and a 'regular' electric show on Sunday at 11.30pm - I'll also be working behind the Cadiz Music merchandising stall at various times throughout the festival which runs from Thursday to Sunday - to say that I'm looking forward to the whole thing is, as they say, the understatement of the year, not least as we're playing before Glen Matlock and The Philistines on the Sunday evening. I spoke to Glen at last month's Sylvain Sylvain show at The 100 Club when he cheerily advised me to make our show a good one as he would have Earl Slick in his band. 'So...' I thought to myself, 'that means I'm going on after the bloke that I've seen playing in The New York Dolls and David Bowie's band...' 

It looks as though we had better make it a good one hadn't we?!?

I may have just said that it's been a quiet weekend but it certainly wasn't particularly quiet on Friday night, when I returned to the afore-mentioned 100 Club to see Guitar Wolf. The show was promoted by Rupert Orton of The Jim Jones Revue, who I met at last month's Ruts D.C. gig in Brighton - he invited the band along to the show, and to this end myself and Dave (Segs sadly couldn't make it) met in The Champion before the show, where we bumped into Gary and Martin from The Bermondsey Joyriders. Much jollity followed, to such an extent that by the time we got to the club Guitar Wolf were a couple of songs into their set. They describe themselves as 'jet rock 'n' roll' which as mad as it may sound isn't a bad description as this clip from the show shows - as Dave put it, 'I don't really have a reference point for this'. Well said! Still I thought they were good fun, and with the packed crowd behind them all the way a suitably raucous performance ended with singer Seiji being joined by The Mutants for a blazing rendition of 'Dead Beat Generation'. Afterwards there was time for a quick chat with Rat Scabies (he and Dave are old mates) before the inevitable 'on-no-we'd-better-go-as-it's-nearly-time-for-the-last-train-home' moment. A fine evening all round.

And it was a fine evening all round last night, when Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks made their debut appearance at The Red Lion in Isleworth. With Dave elsewhere Roger from The Upper Cut depped on drums and made an excellent job of things - mind you, he usually does... with Al on fine form our show went very well indeed, and with a return visit planned I for one will certainly be looking forward to it as it's a great pub which lives up to it's reputation as one of the best venues on the circuit. And it was great to see Charlie who used to run The Globe all those years ago too - another splendid evening. Maybe it wasn't such a quiet weekend after all? 

And, as previously discussed, it's unlikely to be quiet next weekend either - 

- excellent!