Big Boss Man

Now this is exciting - Ruts D.C. have secured an endorsement deal with Roland who make a lot of excellent musical equipment, among which are Boss guitar effect pedals. When I was a lad (and believe it or not I was once a lad) Boss were the pedals to have, not least because there were nowhere near as many manufacturers as there are now. I had the CE-2 chorus and the DM-2 analog delay pedals, both of which went missing in action in the early days of my time with Ruts D.C. (click here for the full sad story) but I'm pleased to say that I have now been able to replace them with their modern-day equivalents. Hurrah! I'm looking forward to plumbing them into my pedal board and seeing how they sound with the band, but initial experiments at home are very encouraging indeed.

Incidentally the first time I remember speaking to Paul Fox was when I stumbled up to him (I was even shyer than I am now in those days) at a gig and blurted out something like 'excuse me Paul, what guitar pedals do you use?' He told me he used a Boss chorus pedal so of course I had to have one... for those of you interested in such things he actually had the now highly sought after CE-1 which had been discontinued by the time I was in a position to buy anything - this 'new' Waza version of the CE-2 claims to replicate it's near-legendary sound. We shall see...

Your humble narrator in what
those in the know call MV3.
That's Ruts D.C.'s gear behind me.

And talking of exciting things, last Friday saw the much-anticipated (by me at any rate) BBC Radio 6 Music 'Christmas Punk Party' hosted by Steve Lamacq at the famous Maida Vale Studios. Back in the day I remember recording sessions by the likes of The Ruts and indeed Ruts D.C. from the radio, many if not all of which were recorded at said studios - and now little old me found himself participating in the digital equivalent. Amazing. It certainly was a day to remember - The Damned played a great set, with Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian were as iconic as ever and Paul Grey back on bass and looking as though he was loving every minute of it. Stuart Pearce introduced the band, Brix Smith Start DJ'd before their set and Ruts D.C. played a 20-something minute set to a wildly appreciative audience - but that only tells a fraction of the story. As someone who has been known to get over-emotional about music and the power it can have in people's lives I will go so far as to say that it was one of the most enjoyable musical adventures that I've ever been lucky enough to be part of. From meeting up early afternoon in The Prince Alfred (during which Mr. Lamacq appeared through one of the pub's many doors and nearly went flying over my guitar case) to returning there after the show for advanced drinking and jollity it was everything I and indeed we could have hoped that it would be. If you missed it you can hear the whole show here on the BBC 6 website for the next few weeks, and Adrian at Aural Sculptors has been quick off the mark by getting the Ruts D.C. and Damned sets up for download here. Great stuff.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've go some guitar pedals to try...

Punky Reggae Party

At this time of year a busy few days in mad-guitar-land is all too often followed by a bout of ManFlu, and that is indeed the case once again here. Bah! But it's also been a good few days in mad-guitar-land, beginning last Thursday with a Ruts D.C. gig at The Talking Heads in Southampton. The Riverjuke amp went wrong (again) in our soundcheck (it blew a fuse - time for a 'proper' service perhaps lads?!?) but thankfully my amp sounded great (again) and we played a splendid set to a nearly-sold-out room. It's good when that happens - but as I said last time, we're lucky as it happens to us quite a lot these days.

The next two nights saw your humble narrator catch a couple of great gigs, the first of which was at Koko on Friday where The Undertones reduced grown men to tears with a magnificent performance. As 'Teenage Kicks' drew to a close and the entire place erupted around us Adrian of Aural Sculptors fame commented 'John Peel was right about that one wasn't he?' Indeed he was Adrian, indeed he was. The following night Daniel Romano played at The Borderline, a venue which has been completely transformed since I was last there. The stage is in the same place but everything has been painted black, the bar has moved and the walk to the toilets resembles something out of a science fiction film. Weird! Mr. Romano is a big favourite at Balcony Shirts - Scott plays his albums in the shop all the time - and myself and the lads saw a blistering display of garage-y rock from the man and his band. Great stuff - if you're not familiar with his work he's well worth checking out.

On Sunday afternoon Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook. At the end of our second set the guv'nor approached Al with the immortal words 'there's a one-er in it for you if you play another 25 minutes' - I think Al surprised said guv'nor with his reply of 'can you make it £120, it divides easier between the six of us?', but either way we played an extra 25 minutes and everyone went home happy. Well I certainly did, until I woke up the next day with a cold. Ah well - you don't get something for nothing do you? Which reminds me - Ruts D.C. will be joining The Damned, Brix Smith Start and Stuart Pearce (oh yes!) on Steve Lamacq's BBC Radio 6 Music Live radio show 'Christmas Punk Party' on Friday 8th December. As I said in the last posting, I can't quite believe what I type here sometimes... anyway if you'd like to come along this link tells you how to apply for tickets - I wouldn't leave it too long if I were you...

Love Sculpture

As the Stranglers / Ruts DC tour grows ever nearer I seem to be spending rather a lot of my time changing strings, checking leads, working out how many stage clothes I need (where the hell am I going to keep my hats?!?) and of course making sure that I've got enough t-shirts, underpants and socks for our jaunt. It's all glamour this rock 'n' roll lark I can tell you... meanwhile the always - well - worth - reading Aural Sculptors blog has just published an interview with, of all people, me. Hilarious - I never for one minute thought that anyone would ever want to interview me. Me! You can find out what I think about, ooh, all sorts of things - it's even got a picture of me with hair! Me me me it's all about me! You can have a read of it here if you like, and there are also some downloadable live recordings of a Price gig from way back in the 1980s and a show T.V. Smith and myself played at The 12 Bar Club in 2012 (get them here and here - go on, you know you want to!) for your (ahem!) listening pleasure. Great stuff - thanks Adrian!

Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played three shows last weekend, at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale, The Dashwood Arms near High Wycombe and The Riverside Club in Staines. The latter was notable for the fact that Al all but lost his voice in the first set which involved some fairly drastic rethinking of the set list although it all went well in the end. It was also notable for featuring the great John Sorrell AKA Johnny Squirrel on bass guitar as Dave was gigging elsewhere - it's always great to see Squirrel, and his playing was effortlessly excellent as ever. 

This week The Upper Cut return to Ye Olde George in Colnbrook on Sunday, which in hindsight I perhaps should have turned down as it's getting very close to tour - time. Ah well, I'm sure it'll all be ok - after all, you can only spend so much time counting t-shirts, underpants and socks...

'Walking down the King's Road with some friends of mine...'

Back to the 'there's only time for a quick round-up of what's been happening in Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars' format...

- I went to 'Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea
I like The Rolling Stones more than I sometimes realise, if you know what I mean. And I liked this exhibition too - well I must have liked it, as I managed to spend over three hours there stumbling from room to room. There's lots for a nerd like myself to enjoy, and plenty of stuff for normal people too - if you're thinking of going then get along there before it closes!  

- I saw Dead Men Walking at Dingwalls. 
From Chelsea it was a short tube train journey up to Camden Town where with the help of Adrian from Aural Sculptors and his wife Gunta I eventually found Dingwalls (it's all changed around there since I was a lad I can tell you!) just as the band were sound checking. On stage from left to right were Kirk Brandon, Dave Ruffy, Segs and Jake Burns - a formidable line-up be anybody's standards. And I'm pleased to say that they sounded as good as you'd hope that they would. Highlights of the evening were many and varied, although the moment that sticks in my mind was when myself, Segs and ex - U.K. Subs guitarist Jet were in The Elephant's Head shortly before the show half-seriously considering some sort of appearance at the the then - happening open mic night when a chap got on stage and performed 'Rasputin' on a stylophone. He followed it with 'Ace Of Spades'. We decided not to play. How do you follow that?

- I played two shows with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks.
With Pete still away I was on solo guitar duties in Greenford at The Black Horse on Saturday night; he then returned the next afternoon for a gig at Sally B's in Hoddesdon. The first show was good and the second was even better - things are definitely going in the right direction for Big Al and The Boys.

And hopefully things will be going in the right direction this week too, but more about that next time, when I've got time…

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...

'Let me tell you how it will be, it's one for you nineteen for me...'

First things first - the always-excellent Aural Sculptors blog has posted a review of the forthcoming Ruts D.C. album 'Live On Stage', which you can read here. Thanks Adrian - that's another drink I owe you!

Anyway it's Sunday afternoon and as I sit here typing I can still detect the faint but unmistakable smell of soldering... I was minding my own business on Friday night during a Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks show at The Brushwood Inn in Hillingdon when my trusty Telecaster (well it had been trusty up until that point!) suddenly and very abruptly stopped working. Fortunately I had a spare guitar with me (a Stratocaster in case you were wondering) so I finished the show with that; today has been the first chance I've had to open it up and see if anything obviously wrong, and as I lifted the control panel up it was obvious that a couple of wires had become detached from the pick-up selector switch. I've re-soldered them and it's working again but it's making a rather worrying buzzing - maybe it's not earthed or something? A job for Stuart the guitar repairman methinks... 

Meanwhile in the midst of the past posting's death - fest (!) I omitted to mention that I'd been to a couple of gigs last week. 

On Thursday The Good Old Boys played at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale. I always find it interesting to see someone else play at a venue that I have played a few times (yes, I know, I should get out more, or make some friends, or something!) and this time was no exception - it being near to the Bank Holiday weekend there were less people about than perhaps there might have been, but the boys still put on a good show. Mind you, they normally do... Nick Simper greeted me with the words 'I thought of you the other day' (now there's something that I never thought that I'd hear a former member of Deep Purple say!) and went on to say that he'd recently guested with The Rapiers at a Johnny Kidd tribute event. He thought that they'd made a good job of things, and as these two clips show, he was correct!

The next night Simon and Hud from The GOBs joined bassist Bill in The Ali Mac Band at The Red Lion in Feltham. I'd not seen them play for what seems like ages, and they sounded good particularly vocally with some excellent harmonies from everybody in the band. I believe that The Red Lion has just started putting live music on, which has got to be a good sign in these days of venues disappearing left right and centre. Let's hope it's a successful venture. 

And for the second weekend running I saw Dave Ruffy depping in a band, this time with The Montecristos at The Islington in (you've guessed it!) Islington last night. With Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X at the helm they roared through a very enjoyable hour or so of rockabilly-charged rocking and rolling, with the young ladies on double bass, trumpet and saxophone drawing many-an admiring look from all concerned. And I hadn't been to The Islington before but will certainly look out for gigs there in the future, as it's an excellent little (with the emphasis on the word 'little'!) venue.

Right - a quiet-ish week this week, with just an Upper Cut private party show on Saturday. Time I got that bloody tax return finished then...

Early morning cold taxi

Another busy few days in mad-guitar-land - good! I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's also been a rather tiring few days, but it's better than having nothing to do...

In the wake of the Vive Le Rock article and album review there were two Ruts D.C. shows late last week. Thursday night saw the band visit The Brook in Southampton. Support came from Miss Jewels who sounded good to me although I did spend much of their set behind the merchandise stall and so didn't hear as much as them as I might have liked. I do remember them playing 'Heat Wave' though which is never a bad song to hear. For our show I used a Marshall Vintage Modern combo courtesy of my great friend Paul Cope (there were amplifiers supplied at the next night's show so I'd decided to travel light) which sounded absolutely fabulous to such an extent that I'm going to keep my eye out for a second hand one should I ever make any money (there's not much point in keeping an eye out then!) There's a review of the show on the excellent Aural Sculptors blog which also includes some video clips from the gig - overall it was a boisterous performance that saw the first appearance in the set for 'Something That I Said' (oh yes!) and a great reaction from the audience. 

But if that was a boisterous performance then the next night's show at The Great British Alternative Music Festival at Butlins in Minehead took us to new heights of, er, boisterousness. (Is that a word?!?) We were on Centre Stage at 10 o'clock (which sadly meant that I missed Eddie And The Hot Rods who were on at Reds at the same time - bugger!) and played to what looked to me to be a capacity crowd of around 3,000. An extraordinary incident took place about halfway through our 60 minute set when a couple of girls decided to shout something (I'm still not sure what!) at Molara who reacted by putting them down in no uncertain terms. It seemed to spur the band on, and our set (which had already been going well) finished to scenes of audience hysteria that wouldn't have been out of place in 'A Hard Day's Night'. I went out to watch The Members (who featured the irrepressible Rat Scabies on drums) play after us and must have shaken hands with 100 people. Great stuff all round, only tempered by the fact that we had to leave at 7.30am on Saturday to get the van back to London in time for us to avoid paying for an entire weekend's hire...

I woke up just after 5pm. I'd got home sometime before midday, had a shower and then fell asleep. Rock 'n' roll eh? Still no time to worry about that now, as The Upper Cut are playing in Colnbrook at Ye Old George Inn and I've got to get my things (and indeed myself) together - except, er, we're not. I was just getting changed for the show when I received a text message from Terry the bass telling me that the gig was cancelled. I called him straight away - apparently someone who likes our band (don't laugh, there are a few of them around!) had called the venue for directions and no one there knew anything about the show. Bah! Oh well, at least we found out before we got there - that's fortunately only happened to me a couple of times and is rather depressing. The gig has already been rescheduled for Sunday 12th May (unusually we're on at 5pm) so it does look like a genuine mistake was made. Oh well!

Sunday saw the final Back To Zero rehearsal before this week's gigs - Sam, Andy, Squirrel and myself were joined by Craig on vocals (he's one of the singers from the first time around and is singing lead on three songs at Saturday's show) and Stuart on keyboards for a session at RnR Studios in Uxbridge. Things were sounding so good that we finished the session early - now that's something that doesn't happen very often! After dropping my gear back at home I made my way down to The Crown And Treaty for the latest open mic / jam night. Such was the general jollity of the occasion that I found myself at a similar gathering last night at The Three Wishes in Edgware. It's interesting - not that long ago I'd never attended such an event but I must admit that I've enjoyed the ones that I have been to. That said they almost always have the odd peculiar moment - but perhaps they're the best bits? Hmm... maybe more about that another time...

'You think they might have finished building the venue before they hired it to us...'

Time for the first Ruts D.C. shows of 2013, at The 200 Club in Newport and The Fleece in Bristol :-

It's Friday not long after 1pm, and the doorbell has just gone. A familiar figure can be seen through the frosted glass... 'punk rock insurance' says John 'Segs' Jennings of Ruts D.C. offering his right hand. I shake it and smile - 'not today thank you'. Behind him is Marc the driver who I meet for the first time, in the van is Nick the soundman (the rest of the band - Dave Ruffy on drums, newly-bearded Seamus Beaghan on keyboards and Molara on vocals - are making their own way) and it's only a few minutes before my gear and myself are on board and we're on the road. We wend our way along the M4, stopping at Reading Services for sandwiches and petrol - Segs walks over to someone he obviously recognises, greets them with a hug and then comes back smiling - 'Life on the road eh? That's Dave Barbarossa'. And it was.

Handouts and passes
for the shows.
Leaky roof and
Banksys not pictured.

We arrived in Newport just before 5 O'Clock, and at The 200 Club quite a while after - the sat. nav. let us down at the last minute, meaning that a very precarious bit of reversing up Stow Hill was seriously considered before we opted to call the venue and go around the block, arriving at the venue (eventually!) by rather more conventional methods. Ziggy and John of Death Or Glory Promotions are putting on both nights, and arriving at the club it's clear that neither of them are happy with things. The roof is leaking in several places, not least over the left side of the stage making the show a somewhat dangerous proposition. Attempts are being made to fix the problem but it's obvious that there's a lot to do before showtime. We ask where the dressing room is and are shown a small alcove that's cordoned off from the main room by a curtain - not ideal as Seamus discovers when he puts a shoeless foot down on the soaking wet floor, but no one complains. It's a case of 'let's get on with it' - so we do. All things considered our sound check goes well (although Seamus is rather precariously placed a bit nearer to the edge of the stage than he'd like in a attempt to avoid any water landing on him) and we leave support bands Criminal Mind and Foreign Legion to set up while we go off in search of some food. We find The Queen's Hotel where 2 meals for £6.59 is too good a deal to miss. (It's all glamour this rock 'n' roll lark I can tell you!) We linger a while then decide to go back to the van to run through a few songs and check some backing vocals. (See what I mean!) We walk past a club called Six Feet Under which is advertising an intriguingly-named night called The Love Surgery (!) before arriving back at the bus and playing for 20 minutes or so, which we all agree was well worth doing.
10pm and we're ready to go - an hour-and-a-quarter it's all over bar a not-inconsiderable amount of shouting. It was a good show (especially considering the risk of possible electric shock) but we all agree that the best is yet to come. Meanwhile I join Marc behind the merchandise desk while Dave and Segs sign all and sundry for all and sundry and I'm approached by a lady who asks if could have my plectrum and then tells me that I have 'magic fingers' - you can do your own punchline if you like... as we're getting ready to leave John asks me if I've 'met Keith yet'? When I say no he takes me over to a unassuming chap who turns out to be ex-Clash and Public Image Ltd. guitarist Keith Levene. Excellent!
We're staying at the Bristol Filton Holiday Inn which should only be 30 minutes or so from the venue but with part of the M4 closed it takes a bit longer than it should. When we arrive we find that breakfast closes at 10.30am, we don't have to check out until 2 in the afternoon and the bar is still open. Result! Beers are bought and Dave treats himself to a bottle of wine; he looks very pleased with himself until he discovers that it's 'corked' (one for the 'Fawlty Towers' fans there!) but the barman changes it for a more expensive bottle straight away. The mood is good and we're all looking forward to the next night's show. It's good when that happens.

I managed to (ahem!) leap into action in time to catch breakfast, and I'm glad I did as it was excellent. I'm sharing room 104 with Seamus who finds 'The Professionals' on TV which we both find highly entertaining and indeed amusing. By the time 2 o'clock comes around we're all ready to head into town where we find The Fleece open so we load our gear in - at which point Dave discovers that he's left his drum mat in Newport. Bah! He heads off to get it while the rest of have a couple of hours to fill before sound check. I decide to go off into town in search of a Banksy or two - I look one up on my phone, programme in the street name and start walking... and walking... and walking... no one I ask for directions seems to be from Bristol ('I'm from Cardiff!' was one particularly brisk reply) so after probably the most indirect route ever I eventually find it. I then realise that there's one quite close to the venue so decide to look for that one, which turns out to be much easier to find.
Sound check is a simple enough affair and takes little time, after which Dave and Segs go off to do an interview with Andy Peart (accompanied by Adrian who writes the splendid Aural Sculptors blog) from Vive Le Rock magazine while Marc and myself set up the merchandise table and people begin arriving. A chap comes over and introduces himself as Steve, and then tells me that he saw The Price at this venue supporting The Lurkers in 1990. Amazing! Then an ecstatic Dave comes over with an original Ruts fan called Steve and his son George who have just presented him with two scrapbooks - they look like they have pretty much every article on the band from the time along with press releases and more. An extraordinary collection and a great thing to have.
Criminal Mind are on again with Ruptured Life as first support, both of them play well although I spend much of their sets doing a brisk trade behind the merchandise table and talking to quite a few audience members who are have 'waited 30 years' for our show. No pressure then...
All the band felt that this would be a better show that the previous night (not that there was much wrong with that, but you know what I mean) with the nearly-sold-out crowd getting going from the word go and the band reacting accordingly with a tight, powerful performance. That said it wasn't all good news - someone threw a can at the stage which landed at my feet just as we finished 'Back Biter' (I didn't think that it was that bad! Actually you can see the can arrive at the very end of this footage from the show...) which is the sort of thing that I for one had hoped had stopped happening years ago, but that was the only negative thing about the show. Afterwards it's even busier on the merch and I meet Auntie Pus a.k.a. Julian who is a friend of Dave and Segs's from way back when and someone who I saw support the original band on a couple of occasions.  He seemed to be a nice chap (I spoke to him a couple of times back in the day and remember that he was ok then as well) and was very complementary about the show, which is a nice thing to hear from someone who was there originally. A great weekend's work.

You can read Adrian's review of his evening here... and there are four more Ruts D.C. shows coming up this week, it's Leeds on Friday, Stockton-on-Tees on Saturday, Dundee on Sunday and Liverpool on Monday then there's a week off before an album launch party in Birmingham at the end of the month - full details are on the band's website. Oh yes!

Sunday evening it was up to Koko in Camden for the second and last London show of Wilko Johnson's farewell tour. Viv Albertine was on first and Eight Rounds Rapid on before the main attraction - both were excellent but Wilko and the band (joined by Slim on accordion for a couple of numbers) were just amazing, one of the best shows I've ever seen them give. As with Wednesday's show there was no mention of his illness, although he did look somewhat overwhelmed by the intensity of the crowd's reaction at the end. And why not? He's given us, the audience, so much over the years so he deserves to be treated like a hero at this stage of the game. A wonderful performance from a great musician - if that turns out to be the last time that I see him play then that's a fine show to remember him by.

And last night it was off to G Live in Guildford to see The Stranglers supported by The Godfathers. Myself and Big Andy arrived at the early hour of 4pm - I left him at the venue autograph hunting while I walked off into town in search of Andertons musical instrument
shop. I decided to have another go at using my phone rather than asking a local person where the shop was, and incredibly it led me straight to the front door. I hadn't been to Andertons for ages, it's always been a good shop and has a very impressive amount of equipment of all types - I managed to heroically restrain myself with the credit card, although the fact that none of the many assistants took any notice of me even when I went up to the counter to ask one of them about something that had caught my eye may well have contributed to my restraint.
I've always been a big fan of The Godfathers since seeing them back in the 1980s. Tonight they played a fair few songs from back then as well as showcasing some material from their new 'Jukebox Fury' album, and sounded good although 'If I Only Had Time' went a bit wrong in the middle and there were a few odd moments here and there which prompted anxious glances between band members. It was good to see my old mate Dave on drums (he's in The Sex Pistols Experience who I've depped with on several occasions) and the band certainly went down well so perhaps it was just me. 
What can be said about The Stranglers that hasn't already been said any number of times? They are an absolute institution in more ways than one, with some of the most fervent followers that you'll ever encounter (from what I can gather the band often recognise many of the people in the front row at a lot of their shows) and a back catalogue packed with classics. I last saw them a couple of years ago - they sounded good then and they sounded good last night too, but I have a feeling that they normally do. A fine evening all round.

Right - time for some more Ruts D.C. gigs...

Careful with that axe Eugene!

Before I leave for tonight's gig with The Atlantic Soul Machine at The Bulls Head in Barnes there's just - just! - time to post this splendid image of Santa Claus doing what all of us guitarist types have felt like doing at some time or other... it was sent to me by my mate Adrian who writes the excellent Aural Sculptors blog; this is usually devoted to live performances by The Stranglers, but his latest posting is a very enthusiastic (I wouldn't be putting it here if it wasn't!) review of the Ruts D.C. show at The 100 Club the night before last which you can read here. I'll be ranting and raving about that and all the other shows that I'm in the middle of playing at the moment sometime in the next few days, but in the meantime I hope you have a very Merry Christmas. 

Deptford fun city

Behold the above photo of Room 2 at The Music Complex in Deptford. This is a very good rehearsal studio, which is just as well as I'm likely to be spending rather a lot of time there over the next few weeks. I took the picture early on Wednesday afternoon during a break in a Ruts D.C. rehearsal, when Dave, Segs, Seamus and myself (Molara was sadly unavailable) ran through most of the material played at last year's Alabama 3 support shows as well as several potential additions to the set. Their 1981 album 'Animal Now' is about to be re-issued, and there have been any number of requests for older Ruts songs so the song choices reflected this - I won't ruin it for you millions of fans that are reading this (I wish!) but suffice to say that you hopefully won't be disappointed if you catch one of the upcoming gigs. 
Talking of photos the excellent Stupefaction blog has posted these wonderful images of Ruts D.C. way back in the early 1980s. I remember them looking like that! That was over 30 years ago - amazing. And talking of blogging Adrian at Aural Sculptors has reviewed the 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' sampler CD - it's a very good review (I wouldn't have put a link to it if it wasn't!) as you can read here. Excellent!


I'd expected to be back in Deptford today for a Cool Britannia rehearsal in anticipation of our first show at The Lights Theatre in Andover tomorrow night, but late on Tuesday afternoon the news came that the show had been rescheduled to Wednesday 18th July. Much consternation (and a fair bit of swearing) among the band members followed, as well as speculation along the lines of 'if this has happened now how many other venues are going to do the same thing?' Not good frankly - let's see what happens next.


On a lighter note, The Upper Cut (and after probably far too much debate we've finally decided that it's two words - The Upper Cut rather than The Uppercut) now have their own website which you can see here - more egotism and shameless self publicity! It's been good fun to put together, and if nothing else doing this and my website have given me chance to get to grips with the iWeb facility on my MacBook. I suspect that like my iPhone and iPod I only use a small amount of the clever things that it can do, but have a look and see what you think. Hmm... I use a lot of those i-related thingies don't I? 


And I've just heard from my old Blue Five bandmate (should that be 'duo-mate' as there was only two of us? Answers on a postcard please, usual address) Pete a.k.a. Voltarol whose always-excellent blog has been very quiet of late. It seems that he's been putting his online energies into Facebook (weirdo! - although I guess I really should get myself on there sometime...) and has sent me the links to pages for two bands that he's currently involved with - Silvia Nicolatto and the Anglo Cornish Project and Que Belo Castelo. All good stuff, but I for one miss the Voltarol of old. Come on Pete - get back on the blog!


Right - with an unexpected day at home it's time to plug the guitar in and play. Yeah, I know I could do something sensible like tidy up, but Shirley's out at work and I've got songs to practice. Hope the neighbours aren't in...

Ruts DC revisited

With no gigs this week (bah! Again!) I thought about doing a belated look back at 2011's high and lows but decided that (a) I'm still trying to forget that horrific Chicago Blues Brothers show at the end of November and screaming on about it here won't exactly help me drive it from my mind, and (b) Ruts D.C. have been confirmed as appearing at this year's Rebellion Festival in August, and that seems a much better thing to write about. So here's a look back at last year's Alabama 3 support shows with backstage passes, a setlist and a few pictures from the Forum gig taken by Abbie Jenkinson mostly from the photography pit in front of the stage. They're good aren't they?

The setlist managed to survive all 4 shows without getting lost / ripped / trodden on (delete as applicable) although it was only correct for the first two gigs (Manchester and Bristol) as 'London Dub' was dropped (it's on the forthcoming album) with 'In A Rut' coming into the set after 'Fools' for the Bournemouth and London shows.

The photos show Molara on vocals and percussion, Segs on bass, Dave Ruffy on drums, Seamus Beaghen on keyboards and your humble narrator (wearing Dave Ruffy's hat!) on the electric guitar. I still can't believe it sometimes but, yes, it's really me.

The splendid Aural Sculptures blog has a favourable revue of the Forum show (Adrian has also given a plug for these hallowed pages - top man!) although I'm pleased to say that I've not really seen or heard any bad reports from any of the gigs. Good!

Incidentally I'm also playing Rebellion 2012 with the mighty T.V. Smith; this is more good news as our show there was my next-favourite gig of the year, and it makes the festival something for me to really look forward too. So I'm really looking forward to it!

Jamming!

And so it begins - I spent much of Tuesday in the labyrinth that is the Jamm club in Brixton with Segs running through possible songs for the upcoming Ruts D.C. shows. With the new Alabama 3 album being mixed in the studio a few doors down he occasionally had to leave to listen to a possible finished track, which makes the fact that we managed to run through something like 14 perspective numbers all the more remarkable. I left with a CD of 6 rough mixes of new material and some scribbly notes that detailed key changes, endings, segues and other possible arrangement ideas. I'm likely to be back over there for some more work sometime this week - I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime the return of Ruts D.C. has made it onto the Alabama 3 website, and the Aural Sculptors blog currently features a downloadable gig from 30 years ago in Edinburgh - excellent!

Last night saw an extended Chicago Blues Brothers band play at a very large house in the splendidly named Weston-Under-Lizard. We were playing for the Earl of Bradford at a party for his wife Penny's birthday; normally I end up coming away from events like this spouting left wing rants about the British class system (click here to see what I mean!) but I don't feel too bad about this one. Perhaps it's because I'm really tired as I didn't get in until after 4 a.m., perhaps it was because they all seemed like nice people - who knows? Mind you I didn't like the 'too many cats, not enough recipes' sticker on the back of a Land Rover that I saw on the way into town so maybe it's best that I keep this posting short... band-wise Andy joined us on trombone with Dave on trumpet and Jimmy depping for Richard on saxophone; Pete was added next to Tracy on backing vocals and Steve was on drums with Marc on percussion. Other than that it was business as usual with Squirrel on bass, Ian on keyboards and Matt and Mike as Jake and Elwood - add me on guitar and there was a mighty twelve (twelve!) of us on stage with Big Tel and Dave DJ-ing. Apparently the organisers wanted a 'big' line-up on stage - who said size isn't everything? We were due on at 10 o'clock but finally went on 45 minutes later - our 75 minute performance included rarely-played versions of 'Superstition' and 'Hard To Handle' and saw a fair amount of dancing from the assembled multitude. Big Tel and Dave saw the evening out until 1 a.m. with what sounded to me to be a good selection of seventies disco material although they told me afterwards that they were a bit put out by people requesting Blues Brothers material. Maybe we should have played for longer?

Well, maybe. Again.

And there's just time to mention that Kris Dollimore returns to the Load of Hay next Sunday 23rd - if you're in the area it'd be good to see you...