'Euston, we have a problem...'

Well I've just had three 18-ish hour days in a row and have had little if any time today to sit blogging about 'em. So, in a nutshell...

Thursday - Ruts D.C. rehearsal during the day, Menace rehearsal in the evening.

Friday - Ruts D.C. rehearsal during the day, Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks gig in the evening.

Saturday - working in Balcony Shirts during the day, Neck gig in the evening.

...which all looks reasonable straightforward written down here, and I suppose in many way it was exactly that. The only bit that caused any real problems was getting stuck at Harrow-On-The-Hill Station on Friday as I was coming back from The Music Complex in Deptford (a disembodied voice repeatedly told us that the line to Uxbridge was closed due to 'signal failure at Rayners Lane'; incidentally 2 splendid sessions at said studio may well mean several new songs appearing at the coming weekend's Ruts D.C. shows - oh yes!) for a gig with Big Al and the boys at Hayes Working Men's Club. This resulted in several increasingly sweary phone conversations before the heroic efforts of fellow six-stringer Pete went above and beyond the call of duty by meeting me at Northwood Hills Station. We made it to the gig in time which went well although I felt that I played badly in the first set; it had been a long day on Thursday with the Menace rehearsal at K Town Studios in Kentish Town running on until after 10 o'clock so maybe it was all catching up with me? Still that rehearsal had also gone well, with drummer Noel sounding good on acoustic guitar (he's usually on drums!) and vocals and and Rob excelling on double bass - we're getting together again tomorrow evening so with a Ruts D.C. session also happening another long day is in prospect. Still I wanted to play the guitar didn't I? And it was definitely good to play guitar last night, when Neck played at The Good Ship in Kilburn at an evening to celebrate the 85th anniversary of The Morning Star newspaper. With Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds, Comrade X and Attila The Stockbroker also on the bill a fine night was in prospect, and I'm pleased to say that a fine night was had. Personally after a l-o-n-g day in Balcony Shirts I could perhaps had done with an early night, but as I said earlier, I wanted to play the guitar didn't I?

And there's lots of guitar playing in store for your humble narrator this coming weekend, as it's The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool - in addition to appearing with Ruts D.C. and Menace I'm also playing with The London Sewage Company, working on the Cadiz Music merchandising stall and maybe doing a few songs with a couple of other acts too. I am intending to give a kind of 'running commentary' by regularly updating my Facebook page as the festival progresses, but there are a lot of bars and they're all open all day...