Stand and deliver

Well it's been a long week. I've been working in Balcony Shirts every day since Tuesday and somewhere along the line have hurt my back and picked up a bit of a cold. Or is it the dreaded ManFlu? And although it wasn't a particularly late night at The Three Wishes in Edgware where Big Al and The Blistering Buicks played a sweaty show to the general appreciation of all concerned last night I've been asleep for much of today. I'm back in the shop tomorrow. I could really do with a day off. 

Of course none of this illness, tiredness and no doubt some other words ending with 'ness' has anything with The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool last weekend, where I played electric and acoustic shows with Ruts D.C., joined T.V. Smith for much of his set, played several songs with The Crows (during which I somehow managed to make the up-until-that-point excellent-sounding PA system dissolve into a wall of feedback - oops!) and finished the festival by playing three songs with Department S. Oh and I worked every day on the Cadiz Music merchandise stall too, and wasn't exactly early to bed every night. So it goes.

The shows were great. Really great. The T.V. and electric R.D.C. gigs took place in The Opera House, which is without doubt one of the best venues I've ever been lucky enough to perform in, while the Ruts D.C. acoustic show ended with an actual standing ovation, which is something that you don't see every day. 
Well, I certainly don't anyway… but if you'd like to see it click here! 
Department S were as excellent as ever and The Crows survived their encounter with your humble narrator with aplomb. I didn't get to see many bands play which was a shame in some ways but only to be expected considering my (over) commitments elsewhere. Still it was a terrific few days, and I'm sure that I'm not the only person looking forward to next year's festival already.

In other news Ruts D.C. release our new single 'Music Must Destroy' on September 9th, with the album of the same name coming out one week later. The song was played live for the first time in The Opera House last Saturday - we should be recording a promo video for it in the next week or so (the track features the mighty Henry Rollins, and hopefully he's going to feature in the video too) but in the meantime you can click here for the live version. See what you think...