'We should be on by now...'

Another busy, busy, BUSY few days - I'm not going to complain (for once!) but I am going to play the 'not much time for blogging' card. As previously mentioned January is looking rather quiet at the moment so maybe I'll catch up with all my scribbly notes then? In the meantime here's a brief summary of the last few days...

Ruts D.C. played two shows at the end of last week, at The Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes on Thursday and The Waterfront in Norwich the following night. The first show was good but was somewhat hard work - things got off to an odd start when the first thing we saw at the venue was a poster for the gig with a band photo from 1981 featuring Paul Fox. Perhaps this put us on edge a bit - either way we felt that the show wasn't as good as we'd have liked it to be. Friday's show on the other hand was one of the best of the current run of gigs, with everything falling into place and the audience with us from the first few notes to the last encore of 'H-Eyes'. And it was great to see Steve Ignorant who we played with in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. This Saturday it's our last show of the year, at The Fleece in Bristol - it should be a good one!

On Saturday night I depped with Department S, supporting The Members at The 229 Club near Great Portland Street station. I'd not been to the venue before - we were in the smaller room while the The Beat playing in the bigger auditorium. We'd had a rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, and in the meantime I'd been working on their material on my own - our 50+ minute show was well-received by all concerned, including ourselves. It's a good band with excellent songs - what's not to like, as the youngsters (apparently) say? The Members were joined by ex - Vibrators mainman Knox for 'Baby Baby', and with guitarist Nigel Bennett nursing a broken leg (!) the band roared through their set with plenty of energy and more than a few gags about plaster casts. A fine evening.

And yesterday afternoon The Upper Cut played at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook. Sometime in the last month or so (I'm not really sure when!) I bought myself a Gibson Les Paul Special, and this show and the night before seemed like two good chances to try it out - I'm pleased to say that it both felt and sounded great, to such an extent that I'm hoping to use it a fair bit over the next few weeks. Money well spent (for once!)

This week is busy too - I'm going to see The Who at The O2 Arena, am back in Colnbrook with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks on Sunday (if I'm back from Bristol in time!) and will be playing my first show for quite some time with T.V. Smith, at The 12 Bar Club on Friday night with Goldblade, Eastfield and more. Sadly it seems that the club will be closing early next year - words like 'tragedy' don't cover it. I'm sure that I and quite a few other people will be ranting about this in the weeks to come, but in the meantime Friday's show has all the makings of an absolute classic. Oh yes!