New Year's Resolution revisited

Nothing ever really changes does it?

2015 began with your humble narrator watching Martin Turner in Ruislip, playing a Sunday afternoon gig in Colnbrook with The Upper Cut and spending rather a lot of time at The Resolution Festival at The 100 Club. 

2016 began with your humble narrator watching Martin Turner in Ruislip, playing a Sunday afternoon gig in Colnbrook with The Upper Cut and spending rather a lot of time at The Resolution Festival at The 100 Club.

As I say, nothing ever really changes does it?

I hadn't been to Tropic At Ruislip for a while; having now seen two shows there within a week of each other (I saw The Rollin' Stoned there last Friday in addition to the former Wishbone Ash man the previous Saturday) it's great to see so many people at what clearly is a thriving venue. I know that some people locally criticise the booking policy - mostly tribute acts with the 'first Friday of the month' show featuring an artist or band performing original material - but if it attracts the sort of audience numbers that these shows did it surely can't be a bad thing. And both the shows were excellent, with Martin Turner and his band sounding every bit as classy as they did last year and The Rollin' Stoned playing a great set of songs from every era of the Stones's long career to a sold out crowd.

My first gig of the year as a musician as opposed to as a spectator was with The Upper Cut at The Queen's Arms in Colnbrook. I'd not played at this pub before although the band played a short notice gig there with Pete depping on guitar last month; it being the first Sunday of the New Year it wasn't as busy as it might have been but there were still more than enough people there to make it work. That said although it was by no means a bad show the band wasn't as tight as it can be so it might well be time for a rehearsal or two before our next gig.

The Resolution Festival opened at The 100 Club last Monday with spirited sets from The Ramonas and The Duel - booked by The Crucial Talent Agency and featuring artists and bands from right across the punk rock spectrum highlights have been many and varied, although I have to say that last night's U.K. Subs show and The Members gig on Tuesday night stood out for me. I joined T.V. Smith and Vom for a few songs during their excellent performance supporting the afore-mentioned Members, and Segs joined us for the set closer 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' - with Gaye Advert in the audience he confessed to being nervous before the show, but it all went brilliantly well as this short clip shows. All in all a great event which will hopefully take place again next year.

And tomorrow Segs and myself will be in the studio at Jamm in Brixton reviewing and working on last month's Ruts D.C. recordings. 2016 then...

'...like the moon, and the stars, and the sun...'

Ruts D.C.'s 'Psychic Attack Tour 2015' ended last week with five 'Beautiful Nights' shows in Southend, Reading, Doncaster, Wolverhampton and Blackpool with The Levellers and Dreadzone. And what shows they were my friends, what shows they were. I don't think there was a moment of them that I didn't enjoy. No, really. Ok that might be a bit fanciful, but you know what I mean I think. As is customary I made notes as I went along - these have been added to the seemingly interminable scribble from the other 35 shows, and one day I'll get around to writing them up here. Probably.

Now it's back to basics - gigging with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks and The Upper Cut, working in Balcony Shirts, trying to get on course for Christmas - except that it's not. I've got to do all of those things and more, but Ruts D.C. have a new album to make. We've been working on some of the songs today, and start recording next week. Good.

In the meantime 35 years ago today John Lennon was shot dead in New York. I reflected on the 30th anniversary in these hallowed pages 5 years ago (fairly obviously!) which you can read here if you like, and you can click here for a clip of the great man performing 'Instant Karma!' on 'Top Of The Pops'. Go Johnny go... we all shine on...

Beautiful Nights, Beautiful Poster

Of course after saying that I couldn't find a poster for this week's 'Beautiful Nights' gigs I then found a poster - maybe I should say something like 'I can't find a million pounds' next time... mind you, what would I do with a million pounds? Well I'd spend it I suppose... anyway here's the poster. It's good isn't it? We're due on stage at 7.40 pm for 40 minutes every night, so if you're coming to a show get there early! And we'll no doubt see you in the bar afterwards - we usually do don't we?

Beautiful Days, Beautiful Nights

So there you have it - after travelling somewhere between 25 - 30,000 miles (I must work it out one day!) we have returned from our epic journey to Australia and New Zealand. To say that it was great is an understatement of monumental proportions but I'm going to say it anyway - it was great. Once again I have pages and pages of barely legible scribble which I will attempt to decipher at some point in the coming weeks (months? years?!?) and type up on here, but suffice to say that despite being incredibly tiring it was every bit as enjoyable as I for one hoped that it would be. Great stuff - and there's more from Ruts D.C. next week when we play five 'Beautiful Nights' shows in Southend, Reading, Doncaster, Wolverhampton and Blackpool with The Levellers and Dreadzone. Full details of the shows can be found on this YouTube clip - I can't find a poster for the gigs so instead here's a photo of Dave, Segs and myself in front of a blooming great tree a couple of hours before we left for home. And why not?

Pretty cool huh? Well, I like it... in the meantime I'm off to sleep. This jet lag lark really gets to you doesn't it? 

Thinking outside of the boxset

Good news for old punks such as myself - a series of box sets featuring bands signed to Virgin Records back in the day have been put together by Captain Oi! Records supremo Mark Brennan; somewhat inevitably it's the Ruts one that's been causing the most excitement in our house, but with collections by the likes of The Professionals, The Skids, Penetration and The Motors also available there's much to enjoy here. Most if not all can be purchased through the Captain Oi website - go on, you know you want to...

Not-such good news also arrived this week - Cockney Rejects bass player Tony Van Frater has died aged just 51. I can't pretend to have been his best mate, but I can honestly say that every conversation that I had with him was an absolute pleasure. He would always ask me how to play the Ruts song 'West One (Shine On Me)' - having spent far too long attempting to wind him up with answers like 'that's between me and Paul Fox' I eventually said that I'd show him it; he smiled, told me the chords and said that he'd known them all along. A cheerful and witty man, he will be missed by many.

Back to basics for me this weekend, with two gigs for The Upper Cut and a show with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks. The Upper Cut shows were both at regular haunts for the band (The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Friday and The Salmon And Ball in Bethnal Green on Saturday) and were tricky from your humble narrator's point of view as my normally trusty Gibson SG decided to malfunction. I thought it sounded a bit strange at the first gig, but decided it was just my ears; however after a few songs on Saturday it was clear that there was a problem with the pick-up selector switch - it was sticking in one position and crackling in another. After attempting to fix it during the show by swearing at it (Oh come on, we all do it don't we?!?) I had a closer look at halftime - the retaining nut had come loose so I tightened it up and got through the second set although there was still something obviously wrong. I opened the guitar up on Sunday morning and re-soldered the joints on the switch (dry joints are the enemy!) and used a generous amount of switch cleaner pretty much everywhere - thankfully it all sounded good when I plugged it in so hopefully that's sorted it out. In comparison Sunday's gig at The Halfway House in Barnes with Big Al and co. was an uneventful affair in that it all went swimmingly well, which I don't mind admitting was something of a relief given the previous couple of evenings. 

After a gap of a couple of weeks it's now time for the next leg of Ruts D.C.'s Psychic Attack Tour 2015 - incredibly we are about to play 5 shows in Australia and 3 shows in New Zealand. I've not been to either country before, so to say that I'm looking forward to it all is something of an understatement - once again it is my intention that scribbly notes will be scribbled and Facebook postings will be posted, although as you can see it's going to be a busy couple of weeks...

Home is where the heart is - for a while at least...

Back home after two-and-a-bit weeks away - I've done my washing (well, most of it!) and sorted all my gear out so now it's time to get back to whatever it is that passes for 'real life' in my mad little world. At times like this it's always hard to work out what to do now - that said I'm back in Balcony Shirts tomorrow and gigging with The Upper Cut and Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks at the weekend so this time there's not much opportunity to debate that particular question.

Overall it was a great tour - well I think that it was. Only around 2,500 miles covered this time (!) but we played well, made lots of new friends (not least support band The U.K. Feds who were a great bunch of lads and who were consistently excellent throughout) and generally did what we set out to do. Highlights were many and varied - they often are - and although there was the odd low moment they were far outnumbered by the good bits. As usual I made some hard-to-read notes; as usual it'll be ages before I get around to writing them up here. But if you came to a show - thanks. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did.

There are some reviews on the Aural Sculptors and Elvis In The Clouds blogs, and no doubt YouTube clips are appearing even as we speak, if there's any footage of Rupert Orton of The Jim Jones Revue on guitar or Supa 4 freestyling with us at the London show, or Mitt Gamon playing harmonica in Bristol then I for one will be very interested to see it. They were both high points, as were Brighton, Liverpool, Glasgow... well as I say, one day I'll write up those notes!

Next month Ruts D.C. travel to Australia and New Zealand - The Psychic Attack Tour 2015 continues...

'That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight...'

Behold this splendid image of Ruts D.C. taken by Graham Trott at The Academy in Manchester last Saturday 3rd October. We were supporting Hawkwind at their wonderfully-named Hawktoberfest, and even though I say so myself, we were doing a pretty good job. The show was on the back of 9 European shows organised by The Muttis Booking Agency (Hi Mutti, Katja and Sonja!) which saw us wend our way across Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy, travelling over 4,000 miles in total and having a great time in the process. Dave and Segs wrote some excellent blog pieces that can currently be seen on the band's website while I made the obligatory hard-to-read scribbled notes as I went along which intend to type up and get on here as as soon as I can. Mind you that won't be for a while, as we're playing at the rather loftily-titled Great British Alternative Music Festival in the hotbed of rock 'n' roll debauchery that is Skegness tomorrow before setting out on the UK leg of The 'Psychic Attack' Tour supported by The UK Feds. That'll keep us busy for the next couple of weeks - more obligatory hard-to-read scribbled notes beckon, and in the meantime I'll be updating my Facebook page as often as possible. If you're coming to a show then we'll see you there - do come over and say hello... 

Incidentally the Middlesborough show isn't happening - instead we'll be playing a 6pm acoustic show at Hog's Head Music in Edinburgh. It should be a good one... in the meantime Dave has chosen his 10 favourite Ruts and Ruts D.C. songs for TeamRock - the article includes a live version of our new song 'Psychic Attack' recorded last Saturday in Manchester - enjoy!

Start as you mean to go on

'Another new year and too much beer and a puke into the sea' - so begins 'Airstrip One' by Attila The Stockbroker, a less-than-cheery (i.e. realistic) look at the way Britain became little more than an American aircraft carrier in the 1980s and in doing so proved George Orwell to have been correct nearly 40 years earlier. It's a song that always seems to come into my mind on New Year's Day - and yet as I sit here typing this nearly 12 hours into 2015 the only part of the line that applies to me are the first three words. Maybe that's not a bad thing? 
Last night's Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks gig at The Kings Arms in Harefield was certainly no bad thing either, although it took a while to get going - we played three sets beginning at half past nine and ending just over three hours later, and while our first one was all but ignored by the few people present things had certainly hotted up by the second stage of proceedings, and the third set saw plenty of dancing, singing along and general jollity, which as I say is no bad thing. New Year's Eve tends to be an odd event from a band point of view - it's traditionally seen by many as a night where a musician can earn a bit more than usual and play a suitably raucous show in front of a sea of adoring fans, where as the reality is often closer to it being something that's often almost dreaded as much as anticipated. Me? I like it. No really I do. Why shouldn't I? It's always good to play guitar, and it was definitely good last night. 
And it was good to play guitar on Monday night with The London Sewage Company at The 12 Bar Club. With closure looming time is running out for one of the best venues of them all, and even though I say so myself The LSC made the most of what was likely to be their last appearance on the 12 Bar stage with a spirited performance that was enjoyed by all concerned. Despite reoccurring Manflu (I've more-or-less shook it off now - hopefully! - although it appears to have been replaced by toothache. Bugger!) I decided to stay for a drink after the show, and was struck by the number of people taking photos of the bar, the entrance, the stage - I have a feeling that I'm not the only person who will miss The 12 Bar Club when it closes.

So - what's next? Well my first gig of this year is with The Upper Cut at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook this Sunday, after which it's time to set the controls for The 100 Club where Ruts D.C. will be playing a week today as part of The Resolution Festival. Billed as 'A 5 Date Celebration Of Punk In It's Spiritual Home' it certainly looks like it should be an event to remember, and I'm hoping to catch as many of the shows as I can. And talking of punk rock tonight on BBC4 they're showing 'The Clash : New Year's Day '77' which promises some previously unseen footage of The Clash. Not a bad start to 2015...