I don't know about you but I used to really like football. As a lifelong fan of the (once) mighty Reds I'm obviously less keen these days (!) but even without their hapless descent into near self-parody I think I'd have lost interest anyway since most major games these days look to me like a bunch of bored millionaires filling in time before making another attempt at getting off with one of their teammate's wives.
Cynical? Me? Imagine that...
On the other hand from a Balcony Shirts point of view I'm bound to say that I'm completely wrong with the above analysis; we should all be supporting England in their attempt to bring The World Cup back to it's rightful home, and of course be wearing an appropriate t-shirt whilst doing so. You know it makes sense!
The opening night of the tournament (Friday in case you're not following it) saw The 4 Faces visit the excellently named After Office Hours in Barnet. Roger (drums) and myself arrived to find Terry and Terry (bass and vocals) on hand to help us carry our gear in, a fortuitous development as we could only get in the back way which was across a yard and up some rather imposing looking iron steps. The Uruguay vs. France match was on the big screen which was on the stage - so no setting up until the end of the game then. It didn't look a very likely venue for us but with the aid of a stag party and some very interesting dancing from some young ladies present it turned out to be a good night. I tried the FMT Telecaster again which coped well with the rockier material as well as the soul stuff (it's got very good pick-ups along with a coil tapping switch) so it definitely looks like Andy's made a sale... oh and Terry the singer suggested that we change the name of the band again; Terry the bass said he'd just seen a shop opposite called The Upper Cut (presumably it's a hairdressers?!?) and that'd be a good name for us, not least as it was a club in London back in the 1960's. Everyone seemed to approve although I for one am not sure if we're now called that or not. Let's see what happens at the next gig.
Saturday it was back up to The Barnham Broom Hotel for what is becoming an annual event for us, The Wishes Ball (organised by trumpeter Dave and his wife Lyn among others) in aid of GOSH and EACH. Ian's back on keyboards (he's been away gigging with Ray Davies) and Ian's on sax in place of Richard; Pete and Mike are running the charity auction as well as fronting the band - originally to be a Blues Brothers show it became a Stacks Of Soul gig somewhere along the way, and very good it was too, with plenty of dancefloor action and even a few gatecrashers who were removed by Dave and Lyn. With the England vs. U.S.A. match on in the nearby sports bar Lyn issued a stern warning that anyone caught sneaking out to watch the match would be fined - Mike and Ian both returned from the bar to find pieces of paper telling them how much they owed the charity on their place mats. Perhaps they should have just watched it on their phones like everybody else did!
A couple of years or so ago I did a gig in what might well be one of the more unusual locations of my (ahem) career - the front window of Horsepower Hairdressing in Uxbridge. Andy and myself made a return appearance there on Sunday afternoon at The Loose Goose, a gathering organised by Horsepower supremo Adam which attracted a bewildering number of like-minded souls, many of which arrived on motorbikes or in hod rods and who provided Uxbridge with one of the most extraordinary gatherings that the High Street has ever seen. As we played through a mixture of old blues numbers and songs from The Flying Squad's repertoire tattooed ladies mingled with impressively bearded bikers and an atmosphere of cheery bonhomie prevailed. Arch Flying Squad fan Keith arrived just as we were joined by Steve (a mate of Adam's) on cajon for 'Down At The Doctors' - when we'd finished that he fetched a double bass from his van (!) which he proved to be equally adept at. We had a break to watch the penny farthing time trials (I'm not making this up, honest) and when we finished playing around 5 p.m. both Andy and myself agreed that it had been one of the most enjoyable afternoon's that we'd had in ages - which was just as well as I'd missed some of Shirley's birthday barbecue to play at it. Sorry Shirl! That's why I call her 'long-suffering'...
Showing posts with label 4 Faces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4 Faces. Show all posts
Monday, June 14, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Deal or no deal?
Well there we are then - Britain has it's first hung parliament since the dark days of the 1970's. Personally I will never - never! - understand how a working class person can vote for The Conservative Party, since it seems to me that everything about them is designed to ensure that there's a system in place to keep us proles in the gutter where they think we belong - but it seems that millions got fooled again. And now of course the wheeling and dealing begins, as the the 3 main political parties disappear into a cloud of compromise in an increasingly desperate attempt to get as much power as possible at whatever cost to the few principles that they've still got left, after a general election that saw more deception and doublespeak than ever before.
It's not good really is it?
Friday night's gig wasn't too good either; The Bell in Ruislip has I'm told worked hard to lose it's reputation as being, shall we say, 'less than friendly' but I fear it's failed - there was trouble there recently and the atmosphere wasn't too genial the other night either as Youngblood (yeah I know we were called The 4 Faces last time but Mick the drummer was back for this one as he got us the gig so I'll use our old name here - keep up at the back there!) stumbled through 2 sets in front of ex-CBB'er Mario, a few laddish lads and the landlord's dog. As I stepped off the stage '5.15' by The 'Orrible 'Oo' came on the juke box - 'why should I care?' indeed, it could have been worse (just!) so maybe I should stop moaning and, as somebody once put it, shut up and play the guitar? There we are, I've shut up.
Click here for footage of another guitarist who should cheer up!
Surreal as it may sound there was at least one point in the last couple of weeks when it looked as though your humble narrator could have found himself doing a one-off gig in South Korea on Saturday night; as with so many of these thing it didn't come to pass which is a bit of a shame on several levels, not least as it deprives me of the chance to call this blog entry 'Korea Opportunities' or 'Seoul Man'... that said it would had to have gone quite a long way to have beaten The Chicago Blues Brothers show at The Grosvenor House Hotel in the surrealness stakes, as we were on with Stavros Flatley and the band of The Royal Scots Guards. Actually thinking about it now about the only thing that could have made it more surreal was if they'd appeared on stage together - sadly this didn't happen but I guess there's always next time?
Now I don't know about you but I don't follow all those T.V. reality/talent shows (you know the ones...) and therefore hadn't encountered Stavros Flatley before, but the descriptions that I was given beforehand were extraordinary, mostly along the lines of 'a Greek bloke and his son jump about and do mad Irish dancing'. Sounds just what I'm looking for... as I arrived around 6 p.m. after a busy day in the shop everything seemed to be more-or-less ready for action, with my old Laney combo already set-up (I'd came in on the Tube with just my guitar and stage clothes, Pete keeps my spare amp for situations such as these) and everyone else soundchecked and ready to go. It's the Mears Group May Ball and we're playing in (you've guessed it!) The Ballroom; we've got The Court Suite to use as a dressing room and it's a 'nearly-the-A-team' gig with Chris in for Ian on keyboards as he's away gigging with Ray Davies, with Phil's on the P.A. with Big Tel and Dave D.J.-ing. Stavros and son arrive just as the guards are readying themselves for action, the atmosphere is genial as Stavros signs autographs for all and sundry; I've never asked anyone for an autograph in my life and wasn't going to here until it occurred to me that it might be fun to get one for the shop - Stavros obliged and it's on our Facebook page even as we speak! After the guards band had been on (they did more-or-less what you think they'd do i.e. march about playing military music, an oddly incongruous site on a night such as this) it was time for 3 minutes of, well, a Greek bloke and his son jumping about and doing mad Irish dancing - a near riot ensued where I was watching with people clamouring for a better view and much merriment all round. Stavros took the mic for a few minutes chat, he seemed to be a very nice chap when I spoke to him and came over as such here, appearing almost bemused by the level of success that he and his son has attained. 'We only went on the show for a laugh' said he - whatever the merits or otherwise of what they do they certainly put a smile on a few people's faces on this particular night, which is pretty hard to criticise if you think about it... and we didn't do too badly either, with plenty of dancefloor action during our epic 2 hour set, with an hour or so from Big Tel and Dave bringing a highly successful evening to a close. It's strange - corporate events such as this are not always much fun from a band point of view as you're quite often a secondary consideration but this one was something of an exception, and all the better for it. But it did get a bit odd here and there - maybe that's why I liked it?
I liked Sunday's gig too, although this one also gets stamped 'odd' but for different reasons. For a start it was in Battersea; nothing too odd with that as such but the venue is a Gypsy jazz themed bar called (wait for it!) Le QuecumBar. (Yeah!) It's run by Silvia who describes it as 'the most expensive hobby that I've ever had'; with it's walls adorned with photos of everybody from Django Reinhardt to, er, Hank Marvin (a serious fan of the genre who apparently even turns up at their jam nights and is hoping to put out a gypsy jazz album one day) it's an unlikely venue for The CBB's even if we are using a previously untried format of live guitar and saxophone over backing tracks. Matt 'n'Mike are Jake 'n' Elwood, local lad Ian is on sax (you can see his house from the venue!) and during our soundcheck Ian and myself deciding to play seated on the stage with the BB's on the floor in front of us - I told you it was an odd gig. Mind you it's not as odd as (a) being asked if I know how to fit a dimmer switch on the stage lights and (b) actually fitting it. I didn't know I knew how!
The gig goes well especially considering that Ian and myself are unfamiliar with most of the backing tracks even to the extent of not knowing what key some of the songs are in; there's the odd mad moment (I hadn't heard 'Love Man' for a while!) but we get through it all reasonably unscathed with the BB's in fine form. We might even appear in the same unlikely format again one day. Odder and odder.
Oo-er - Gordon Brown has just resigned. Anarchy anyone?
It's not good really is it?
Friday night's gig wasn't too good either; The Bell in Ruislip has I'm told worked hard to lose it's reputation as being, shall we say, 'less than friendly' but I fear it's failed - there was trouble there recently and the atmosphere wasn't too genial the other night either as Youngblood (yeah I know we were called The 4 Faces last time but Mick the drummer was back for this one as he got us the gig so I'll use our old name here - keep up at the back there!) stumbled through 2 sets in front of ex-CBB'er Mario, a few laddish lads and the landlord's dog. As I stepped off the stage '5.15' by The 'Orrible 'Oo' came on the juke box - 'why should I care?' indeed, it could have been worse (just!) so maybe I should stop moaning and, as somebody once put it, shut up and play the guitar? There we are, I've shut up.
Click here for footage of another guitarist who should cheer up!
Surreal as it may sound there was at least one point in the last couple of weeks when it looked as though your humble narrator could have found himself doing a one-off gig in South Korea on Saturday night; as with so many of these thing it didn't come to pass which is a bit of a shame on several levels, not least as it deprives me of the chance to call this blog entry 'Korea Opportunities' or 'Seoul Man'... that said it would had to have gone quite a long way to have beaten The Chicago Blues Brothers show at The Grosvenor House Hotel in the surrealness stakes, as we were on with Stavros Flatley and the band of The Royal Scots Guards. Actually thinking about it now about the only thing that could have made it more surreal was if they'd appeared on stage together - sadly this didn't happen but I guess there's always next time?
Now I don't know about you but I don't follow all those T.V. reality/talent shows (you know the ones...) and therefore hadn't encountered Stavros Flatley before, but the descriptions that I was given beforehand were extraordinary, mostly along the lines of 'a Greek bloke and his son jump about and do mad Irish dancing'. Sounds just what I'm looking for... as I arrived around 6 p.m. after a busy day in the shop everything seemed to be more-or-less ready for action, with my old Laney combo already set-up (I'd came in on the Tube with just my guitar and stage clothes, Pete keeps my spare amp for situations such as these) and everyone else soundchecked and ready to go. It's the Mears Group May Ball and we're playing in (you've guessed it!) The Ballroom; we've got The Court Suite to use as a dressing room and it's a 'nearly-the-A-team' gig with Chris in for Ian on keyboards as he's away gigging with Ray Davies, with Phil's on the P.A. with Big Tel and Dave D.J.-ing. Stavros and son arrive just as the guards are readying themselves for action, the atmosphere is genial as Stavros signs autographs for all and sundry; I've never asked anyone for an autograph in my life and wasn't going to here until it occurred to me that it might be fun to get one for the shop - Stavros obliged and it's on our Facebook page even as we speak! After the guards band had been on (they did more-or-less what you think they'd do i.e. march about playing military music, an oddly incongruous site on a night such as this) it was time for 3 minutes of, well, a Greek bloke and his son jumping about and doing mad Irish dancing - a near riot ensued where I was watching with people clamouring for a better view and much merriment all round. Stavros took the mic for a few minutes chat, he seemed to be a very nice chap when I spoke to him and came over as such here, appearing almost bemused by the level of success that he and his son has attained. 'We only went on the show for a laugh' said he - whatever the merits or otherwise of what they do they certainly put a smile on a few people's faces on this particular night, which is pretty hard to criticise if you think about it... and we didn't do too badly either, with plenty of dancefloor action during our epic 2 hour set, with an hour or so from Big Tel and Dave bringing a highly successful evening to a close. It's strange - corporate events such as this are not always much fun from a band point of view as you're quite often a secondary consideration but this one was something of an exception, and all the better for it. But it did get a bit odd here and there - maybe that's why I liked it?
I liked Sunday's gig too, although this one also gets stamped 'odd' but for different reasons. For a start it was in Battersea; nothing too odd with that as such but the venue is a Gypsy jazz themed bar called (wait for it!) Le QuecumBar. (Yeah!) It's run by Silvia who describes it as 'the most expensive hobby that I've ever had'; with it's walls adorned with photos of everybody from Django Reinhardt to, er, Hank Marvin (a serious fan of the genre who apparently even turns up at their jam nights and is hoping to put out a gypsy jazz album one day) it's an unlikely venue for The CBB's even if we are using a previously untried format of live guitar and saxophone over backing tracks. Matt 'n'Mike are Jake 'n' Elwood, local lad Ian is on sax (you can see his house from the venue!) and during our soundcheck Ian and myself deciding to play seated on the stage with the BB's on the floor in front of us - I told you it was an odd gig. Mind you it's not as odd as (a) being asked if I know how to fit a dimmer switch on the stage lights and (b) actually fitting it. I didn't know I knew how!
The gig goes well especially considering that Ian and myself are unfamiliar with most of the backing tracks even to the extent of not knowing what key some of the songs are in; there's the odd mad moment (I hadn't heard 'Love Man' for a while!) but we get through it all reasonably unscathed with the BB's in fine form. We might even appear in the same unlikely format again one day. Odder and odder.
Oo-er - Gordon Brown has just resigned. Anarchy anyone?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Re-members
The first gig of this run of work saw The Price make their Tropic At Ruislip debut on Friday night on a bill that also featured The Members and The Attendants. I'd been really looking forward to this one but must say it was a bit anti-climatic from my point of view - maybe I'd been looking forward to it a bit too much? It wasn't that we played badly, we just didn't play as well as we can although things weren't helped by my guitar going badly out of tune during 'Matter Of Time' and us having to cut our set down as things were over-running. Still we went down well and even got offered another gig with The Members so perhaps I'm just being a bit miserable (for once!)
The Attendants kicked things off in fine fashion with a great set that took me right back to 1980-ish when I last saw them; Bert's as mad as ever on vocals, Malcolm still nearly pulls the neck off his SG during every solo and Ken and Russ keep it all moving in the bass and drums department. And I enjoyed The Members too (and I'm not just saying that because we might be playing with them again, honest!) who I also last saw in the very early Eighties; they're a trio these days with drummer Nick Cash joining original, er, members J.M. Carroll and Chris Payne - Nicky Tesco and Nigel Bennett perform with them occasionally. 'The Sound Of The Suburbs' is still a classic as is 'Solitary Confinement' although I'll be very brave and say that me and my Flying Squad friends do a better version of 'Police Car'...
The Attendants kicked things off in fine fashion with a great set that took me right back to 1980-ish when I last saw them; Bert's as mad as ever on vocals, Malcolm still nearly pulls the neck off his SG during every solo and Ken and Russ keep it all moving in the bass and drums department. And I enjoyed The Members too (and I'm not just saying that because we might be playing with them again, honest!) who I also last saw in the very early Eighties; they're a trio these days with drummer Nick Cash joining original, er, members J.M. Carroll and Chris Payne - Nicky Tesco and Nigel Bennett perform with them occasionally. 'The Sound Of The Suburbs' is still a classic as is 'Solitary Confinement' although I'll be very brave and say that me and my Flying Squad friends do a better version of 'Police Car'...
Last night Youngblood played at the unusually named Pear and Partridge in London Colney - or rather they didn't. When myself and Roger the drummer arrived we were greeted by the sight of a large board proclaiming TONIGHT LIVE! THE 4 FACES - looks like Terry's thought of a new name for us then... the barman let us in through the side door, telling us how many complaints they'd been getting about the noise, never a good thing to be greeted with when you arrive at a venue but he was friendly enough and agreed with us that DJ's are normally louder than bands anyway. With the 2 Terry's (one on vocals, one on bass) in place we played our first set to 20 or so lads and lasses and our second to the barman (who requested 'Need Your Love So Bad' which we played and all agreed should go into the set) and a couple of couples - it was one of those 'everyone-was-in-earlier-for-the-football' evenings. Still we played well and it's better than rehearsing... well, actually , it's more or less the same as rehearsing but that's another story.
Talking of which I'd better get my guitar out - Pete from The Blue Five is here soon to prepare for tonight's gig. We've not played together since, oh I don't know, last century I think - is this what they call 'leaving it all until the last minute'?!?
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