Remembering Rebellion 2019

It's time for another slightly blurred missive from a speeding locomotive travelling in a Southerly direction somewhere in England the morning after the night before... 

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Monday 5th August 1.44pm on a train from Manchester to London.

£5.50 for a meal deal. A cardboard sandwich, a chocolatey-nutty-thingy bar and some lukewarm water. And it had all been going so well...still, at least I got on this train - with only 10 minutes between arriving at Manchester Piccadilly from Blackpool North and leaving for Euston it was touch and go, but I made it, as did many others. First world problems eh? And the quiet coach is actually quiet for once. Maybe things aren't so bad after all. 

Actually things aren't bad at all. The Rebellion Festival at The Winter Gardens in Blackpool once again lived up to all expectations (which it must be said, were pretty high to begin with) and indeed might have been the best that I've ever attended. Mind you, it was bloomin' hot, especially in The Empress Ballroom. I don't remember ever being hotter on stage, or indeed in a venue. Surely they can fit some air conditioning? Or even open the doors? Or windows? Or something? 

Your humble narrator
at work with Ruts D.C.
The Empress Ballroom, Blackpool,
August 2nd 2019.

Gig-wise the Ruts D.C. show in the afore-mentioned ballroom was, even though  say so myself, an absolute stormer. We'd considered playing 'The Crack' in it's entirety but eventually we opted for some lesser-played songs from the album alongside some old favourites and, for the first and maybe only time, an excerpt from 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' during 'In A Rut'. We'd been rehearing on the previous Tuesday and Segs was saying how he'd just seen and enjoyed the film 'Sound City' - we jammed the Nirvana song for a couple of minutes and decided that it'd be interesting to include it in our show. It certainly seemed to catch people by surprise... and the following night's acoustic show in the hallowed confines of The Opera House was pretty special too. It's impossible - well it is for me anyway - to stand on the stage and not think of who has stood there in the past. From Charlie Chaplin to The Beatles and from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix and beyond, it really is an extraordinary place. And we were all absolutely astonished by how many people came to see us there - I'm told that they had to open the top balcony, which means that there were at least 1,500 people in there. Amazing. They saw a show which mixed familiar songs with less well-known material like 'Soft City Lights' and 'Walk Or Run' and we also used the strings from the album recording of 'Golden Boy' - well, it is an opera house after all. 

I was very familiar with that stage by the time we played on it, having joined T.V. Smith & Friends (including Pascal Briggs, Attila The Stockbroker, Jennie and Mandy from The Crows and Jamie Oliver) and played with Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants immediately prior to our show. Three consecutive gigs on the same stage - I must have been mad... no I wasn't, I absolutely loved it! And I played 'Ignore Them' with Eddie And The Hot Rods on the same stage the previous evening - well, I was invited, and it would have been rude not to wouldn't it? 

I also saw The Damned, The Skids, The Stranglers, The Professionals - it's amazing how many punky bands have names that begin with 'the' isn't it? - in the ballroom, caught local (to me anyway) heroes Lead Shot Hazard on the Introducing Stage, Department S, Walter Lure and The Godfathers in The Opera House and many many more. Oh and I had too much too drink, not enough sleep, too much junk food - all in all it was something of a triumph. Same time (more or less) next year then. Hopefully.

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Do you know, it's strange - that all seems ages ago now... anyway Ruts D.C. will return in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime it's time for some more gigs with Alvin and co. Great stuff!

Your Disobedient Servant writes...

Well. 

This is getting ridiculous.

Blame Facebook. Well, that's what I'm blaming anyway. After all, it can't possibly be my fault can it?

In the good old days - 'old' days are always 'good' aren't they? - if I'd wanted to bang on about myself in Cyberspace I would have to find a computer (usually in a house, maybe even the one that I lived in) before logging onto this here blog and spending ages humming and harring, writing and rewriting, editing and re-editing... whereas now it just takes a few seconds on a mobile phone or laptop and my self-centred ramblings are there for all to see. Progress? Maybe. Of a sort. 

When I last found my way onto these hallowed pages Ruts D.C. were about to embark on their '40 Years Of The Crack' Tour. That was three months - a quarter of a year - ago. It all went wonderfully well as I regularly reported on my Facebook page (see what I mean!) and we're currently gigging sporadically over the next couple of months including Camden Rocks tomorrow, The Rebellion Festival in August and more - full details can as always be found on, you've guessed it, the band's Facebook page. We're also putting together some new songs which will hopefully form the basis of a new album to be released next year, and planning several other outings before 2019 is over. Exciting times!

I've also been gigging with the excellent Punky Reggae Party (I bet you can guess they do, and indeed where this link takes you) as well as starting a new band with some old friends playing new wave covers - we're called The Slogans, there's no Facebook page yet (or if there is then I haven't seen it!) but you can bet your trousers that there will be...

And I'm pleased to say that I'm about go on tour with Alvin Gibbs And The Disobedient Servants. I was very pleased to be asked to play on two tracks on the U.K. Subs's bassman's debut solo album 'Your Disobedient Servant' which came out earlier this year to rave reviews, and I'm even more excited to be asked to play in the live band, which also features the Subs's drummer Jamie Oliver (yes, that really is his name!) and Godfathers guitar slinger Steve Crittall (he's not on all the gigs on this tour sadly but hopefully will be more involved long term) along with various other guest guitarists (all of whom play on the album) at some of the shows along the way. I will no doubt be reporting as often as I can on you-know-where, and if I've got any sense I'll keep some sort of tour diary which I'll write up here in due course. Just like I used to do in the good old days eh?

Let's hope so.

Ruts D.C. '40 Years Of The Crack' Tour starts tomorrow!

The game is afoot - after what seems like an age (it was announced last summer!) the Ruts D.C. '40 Years Of The Crack' Tour is finally upon us. We're playing 17 shows with The Professionals are special guests, during which we intend to play the first Ruts album 'The Crack' in it's entirety alongside other material from the band's illustrious history - I don't want to sound big-headed, but it's got all the makings of a great tour. As always I'll be attempting to update my Facebook page as often as possible, and if you're coming to a show then please say hello - after all, without an audience it's just like a rehearsal, only louder...

Ruts D.C. '40 Years Of The Crack' tour 2019

Over two - and - a - half months ago I mused in these hallowed pages as to whether or not I was getting lazy when it comes to writing on this here blog; if only I'd known then what I know now.... it's not that I've been lazy (honest!) it's just that I seem to be so bloody busy at the moment; gigs with Big Al and the boys, working in Balcony Shirts, trying to stop nosebleeds bought on by hay fever - it's been all go I can tell you. I've regularly looked at the pile of semi - legible notes that I've been making on the way to gigs, on the way home from gigs, in planes, trains and automobiles - there's a lot of 'em, and even I don't know what half of them are - and thought 'I really must get around to typing them up one day'... and I really must... however in the spirit of shameless self - publicity that this blog (and, I suspect, most blogs) were created in, I'm back - and with big, big news. 

2019 sees the 40th anniversary of, well, lots of things I'm sure, not least the release of 'The Crack' by The Ruts. I remember buying at the time - my copy still has the 'pay no more than £3.99' sticker on it - and spending endless hours sitting on the edge of my bed cradling an unplugged electric guitar trying to work out how to play the songs. Who'd have thought that nearly 4 decades later I'd still be spending endless hours sitting on the edge of my bed cradling an unplugged electric guitar trying to work out how to play the songs? Strange but true.

Next February Ruts D.C. set out on the first part of the '40 Years Of The Crack' tour - the plan is that we will be playing the whole album in it's entirety, along with other material old and new. And there's more good news - special guests The Professionals will be opening the shows (am I really going on after a Sex Pistol? How on Earth has this happened?!?) meaning that if all else fails you get to see two of the best drummers ever on the same stage. To say that I'm looking forward to this is from my point of view the understatement of the century so far, although I'm sure I can come up with something that beats it if you give me long enough. And you never know, I might even write it up here...

Losing My Religion

So - as the Stranglers / Ruts DC tour recedes into the dim and distant past it's back to 'real' life. But what is 'real' life exactly? Playing gigs with The Upper Cut and with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks? Working in Balcony Shirts? Looking forward to playing with Ruts DC this coming weekend and beyond? 
  
Well I guess it's all of these things and more. Some are more enjoyable than others (the gigs with Al and the boys have all been great, the solitary Upper Cut show sadly was not) but that's inevitable isn't it? The Neck gig supporting Ferocious Dog at The Garage in Islington was something of a classic, and it's been busy in the shirt shop too. Oh and I went to see The Who give a great show in Birmingham, with PT on fine form and playing brilliantly (were they mini - humbuckers on his Stratocaster? Ooo!) throughout. Life - 'real' life - goes on. 

All well and good - but I don't mind admitting that I'm feeling a bit... er... lost. I suppose it was always going to be hard to come back from a tour like the last one and be able to slot straight back into things, and I will say that for the most part it's all been ok - but there's a nagging in my head. And it won't go away. 
I often get asked how I go from playing bigger shows to smaller pub gigs, often within a day or so of each other - I've realised over the years of doing it that they all basically amount to the same thing. There will be someone who attends a small gig with a covers band who enjoys themselves as much as people who go to the big shows and vice versa. A case in point - my first show back after the tour was at The Dolphin in Uxbridge with Al and the boys, and was a pleasure to play as was the Sunday afternoon appearance at The Horns in Watford a couple of days later. In between them was the afore-mentioned Neck show where we bought the proverbial house down. However as we all know you don't get something for nothing in life, and it must be said that all of this has made the near-catastrophic Upper Cut Dolphin show on Good Friday so hard for me to stomach - even though we play together relatively rarely these days we're usually a good tight band, but on this occasion (and despite having had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening) all of our collective ability appeared to desert us as we floundered our way through an excruciating show. I sat up much of the night pondering the band's future (my oh my it was a long day in the shop on Saturday!) and came to the extremely upsetting conclusion that we might not have one, which is a great shame. But nothing lasts forever does it? The next night's Buicks's gig at The Three Steps in Cowley went at least some way towards restoring my faith in my ability to play in a band (I'd seriously wondered about it around 4 am that day!) so maybe it'll all be alright in the end. Let's hope so anyway.

In the meantime Ruts DC are playing The Grand in Clitheroe as part of the Into The Valley festival this Saturday night. Oh there you go - I feel better just for typing that. It doesn't take much sometimes does it? Happy Easter y'all!

Yeah I know, it's all a bit garbled, too much whining self pity, non-crisis after non-crisis - but you should see what I've left out! Fear and self loathing in West London - back to 'real' life indeed...

The Stranglers / Ruts DC tour 2017

We're on at 7.45 pm each night - see you down the front!

Euroman cometh

Well it's been a very - make that very - busy few days in Leigh's Mad World Of guitars, to such an extent that between gigging and working in Balcony Shirts I've not really had the time to write a 'proper' blog posting; this means that the full stories of shows by Ruts D.C. in Birmingham, (excellent support from Evil Blizzard and The Black Bombers, my borrowed guitar amp failing just as we were about to go on stage after I got mini-electric shocks from the vocal microphone during the soundcheck) The Upper Cut in Twickenham (cheery drunk girls making the evening all the more worthwhile by outnumbering the cheery drunk boys) and Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks in Sunningdale and Colnbrook (two more good gigs - and Al's already got more than 10 booked for next year!) along with the FFRUK night in Archway (which included a fine set from The Homosexuals) will go largely untold. Ah well.... still it's about to get even busier, as Ruts D.C. start a 10-gigs-in-10-days run of shows in Europe on Thursday. We'll be visiting Germany, Poland and Austria before finishing at The Dogtown Streetpunk Weekend in Oslo with The Cockney Rejects on Saturday 27th September. Full details can be found on the Muttis Booking Agency website - excellent!

Different gear, still speeding...

Of course when I say 'time I got that bloody tax return finished then' what I actually mean is 'time I put all those receipts that have been in those two plastic bags for over a year in some sort of order then attempt to marry them up with bank and credit card statements before wrestling with the online tax return service'. Something like that anyway. Still I got it all done in the end - now I've got to start saving up to pay them...

As mentioned last time this is a relatively quiet week in Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars, although with quite a few gigs on the horizon it's very much a case of 'the calm before the storm'. Good! But I managed to see a couple more bands this week, starting with The Fallen Leaves at The 12 Bar Club. I met up with John King before the gig in The Champion - well to be more accurate I met him outside The Champion, where he was stomping about in a state of no little annoyance. 'There's only one guy serving and it's chaos' roared he, looking suitably disturbed. We decided to have another look inside - there were now two burly-looking chaps behind the bar and an air of calm prevailed so we ordered some drinks; from there we walked down the road to The Blue Posts, then along to The Tottenham... we made it to the 12 Bar Club in time to catch a fiery Fallen Leaves show, although by the time we got there I for one was feeling the effects of the previous few hours. And I certainly felt it the next morning...

Friday night it was time for a visit to Tropic At Ruislip to see Virgil And The Accelerators. I'd seen the band once before (back in April 2012 supporting the mighty Wilko Johnson) and was keen to see how things were developing for them. On Friday's evidence the answer would have to be 'rather well', as the good-sized audience loved the 2 hour show although I have to say that it all went on a bit for me in places - is a 20+ minute guitar solo legal?!? Still the encore medley of 'Thru And Thru' and 'Are You Experienced?' was undeniably impressive, and judging by the number of people who bought CDs and t-shirts the band are definitely going in the right direction. I still say that those solos were a bit long though...

My only gig of this weekend was with The Upper Cut at a private party in Ruislip. We'd not played together for a while so it was good to all get together again - we were playing in a marquee in the back garden of Tracy and Dave's house and overall things went well, with Mark from ME Guitars joining us for a few songs and plenty of dancing and merriment from all concerned. We're playing at The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham this Saturday in the midst of what promises to be a good weekend for your humble narrator, as Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks are also gigging all weekend (I'll be with them on Thursday and Sunday) and Ruts D.C. are at The Hare And Hounds in Birmingham on Friday. And if that wasn't enough Wednesday evening sees the first FFRUK night at The Intrepid Fox (formally The Archway Tavern) in Archway. Segs will be DJ-ing and there are several bands playing - well as I said earlier, things are about to get a lot busier...

Who needs a setlist anyway?

As the current burst of Ruts D.C. activity comes to an end (shame! - although there are things in the pipeline for later this year...) it's time for my first corporate show for some time, and it's also my first show with Utter Madness since the New Year's Eve-before-last's extravaganza in Cardiff. This one took place on Wednesday night at The Metropole Hotel in Birmingham which is part of The N.E.C. complex; this gave me chance to boyishly (some might say 'childishly') tell anyone that would listen that I was 'playing at The N.E.C.' - well, I was, sort of... anyway according to my wristband (they wouldn't let me into the gig without it) we were playing at the 'Security & Fire Installer Live Party!' which I think you'll agree is an interesting idea for a social gathering. Also on the bill were Joe Stilgoe (his Dad is Richard Stilgoe) The RPJ Band (a.k.a. The Rick Parfitt Junior Band - the lead singer's Dad is, you've guessed it, Rick Parfitt from Status Quo) and The It Girls (sorry, I don't know if any of their Dads are famous - maybe I should have asked?) and we were due to play an hour set in the middle of the evening. Almost immediately

The ever-diminishing
Utter Madness setlist,
and a pint of lager.

that was cut to 50 minutes, and by the time we went on at a quarter to nine we were only obliged to play a 40 minute show. Given that we hadn't played together for nearly a year-and-a-half that was probably not a bad thing; add in the fact that surrogate Suggs Tony hurt his back during our 4th song and it becomes something of a blessing. We managed to run through a few songs in the soundcheck - you've guessed it, they were all left out as the set got cut down - which helped us all get back into it, although sadly Jon the bass was absent due to work commitments. (He arrived at 7pm just as food was being served - good timing!) Overall our set went well enough, although as so often happens at these events most people in the hall hardly took a blind bit of notice of us. Oh well. And from what I saw of the other acts on the bill more-or-less the same fate befell them, although that said The It Girls somewhat inevitably got a bit more attention, at least for the first few minutes of their first appearance; I rather suspect that most of the observers lost interest when they realised that they were dancers and not strippers. It was that kind of evening.

It was a very different kind of evening on Friday when Ruts D.C. played at The Globe in Cardiff. As I got into the bus to leave Segs told me that Molara had a bad throat and so wasn't doing this show and was very unlikely to be with us the next night - we spent a fair bit of the journey talking through the set and working out what changes we might be obliged to make. The main sticking discussion concerned 'Jah War' - she sings the song in the set (and she does a very fine job as this clip shows) and after wondering which one of us might be up to the job (I rather wildly said that I'd have a go - fortunately I don't think anybody took me too seriously!) we decided to drop the song and replace it with 'Generations', a song that Segs recorded with Joe Strummer and Rat Scabies for a benefit album and one that we played as an encore at last weekend's Camden show. We also elected to drop the second section of 'One Step' which has evolved into 'Warning' which again Molara sings (and this clip once again shows how well she sings it - not much chance of me getting near to that!) Other than that there weren't too many changes to make other than for your humble narrator to join in on the choruses a bit more than usual...
We arrived at the venue getting on for an hour late - not an ideal situation but unavoidable due to heavy traffic. There were three other bands on the bill so we soundchecked as quickly as we could to give them time to set up. A good sized crowd was expected and the venue was filling up by the time The Phucks (nice name!?!) took to the stage. They were an agreeably noisy bunch that didn't take themselves too seriously, whereas Anonamus Iconaclass were an altogether subtler proposition who reminded me a bit of early Dire Straits (i.e. when they were good... no really they were... well, quite good anyway!) Main support band The Sporadics began their set by describing themselves as delivering 'a bit of ska, a bit of punk, a bit of politics' which turned out to be a very accurate description. They were also very good.
!0.45pm and it's our turn. The place is packed and anticipation is high - I'd met Ziggy and John of Death Or Glory Promotions (they put on our Newport and Bristol shows back in March) before the show, both of whom had said that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing us. They weren't wrong as the place went crazy from the first song. It was interesting how Molara's absence seemed to change the dynamic of the band - it all felt a lot rockier, even a bit more 'laddish' than it normally does. That said we played well, and  although we certainly missed her vocals on many occasions the show caused an extraordinary reaction from the audience, with stage diving, crowd surfing and more - I could have done without getting covered in beer by an over-exuberant chap down the front but to be honest the show was so enjoyable that it didn't really bother me too much. As I say, a very different show to the one on Wednesday.
After the show it was back to the hotel where the bar was still open and the mood was good, right up until the moment that Mark the driver said something like 'see you at nine in the morning' - any chance of oversleeping was removed when the smoke alarm went off before 8 o'clock; I was sharing the room was Seamus and we assumed that only the one in our room went off but it seems that it happened to everybody else too. Lack of traffic meant we got to The Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire around 40 minutes ahead of our projected 1pm arrival time - we had to get there early to get passes and wristbands - which I guess is better than getting there 40 minutes late, although I must admit I could have done with the extra sleep. (I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness when I heard Segs suggest that there should be a Goth catering company called Dark Satanic Meals...) In no time at all food passes are being handed out (vegetarian lasagne - oh yes!) and Citizen Fish are taking to the stage - I'd like to have seen more of their set but missed most of it as we were loading our equipment in but what I did see was very good indeed. Meanwhile we're allocated

Segs contemplates his options -
'Mints? Cashew nuts? Tortillas
and Salsa dip? Or the fridge
full of beer that's not in the picture?'

our dressing room (maybe that should be 'dressing portacabin') where the rider provided much amusement - there may not have been much food but there certainly was a large amount of alcohol... we were playing a 45 minutes set, and since we'd played for an hour-and-a-half the night before we were able to leave out the 'Molara songs' and still have more than enough material for the show. I must say that I felt that our set went by in no time; it included an unusual version of 'Staring At The Rude Boys' which completely omitted the second verse and guitar solo - when I asked him afterwards Segs said that he'd simply forgotten to sing it! Overall it was a good show, not quite as euphoric as the night before but one that still had the audience calling for an encore that lack of time sadly didn't allow. Still it was a good show to finish this run of gigs with - we now haven't got anything booked until The Rebellion Festival in August although hopefully something will come in before then. 

And yesterday evening I went to the open mic / jam session at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge where I played bass on 'Suffragette City' and 'Garageland' with old mates Grant and Steve, than went on to The Crown in Cowley for their acoustic session. It's strange - not long ago I'd never attended such gatherings but now I find them quite enjoyable. That said they do have more than a few odd moments - I really must write a blog piece about them sometime...

Three's company

I have just got hold of the new 4-track EP by Eight Rounds Rapid - you know, the band that supported Wilko Johnson at his farewell shows last month and who feature his son Simon on razor-sharp guitar - and it is, to use a technical term, bloody great. The item in question can be purchased from their website here - I suppose it's unlikely that I for one would have heard of the band without the Wilko connection (and it's very difficult for me to keep that out of the equation) but I genuinely think that they're a very good band well worthy of attention. Have a listen and see what you think... and talking of the mighty Mr. Johnson he has announced that following a guest appearance with Madness last Friday he has played his last live show. It's weird isn't it - since the announcement that he is suffering from terminal cancer he's played some extraordinary farewell shows, and I bet I wasn't the only person kidding themselves that 'he'll be alright after all'? You can see him playing with the band here and read the story here - let's hope he enjoys his time in retirement.

Last Friday saw a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' at The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham. There was a certain amount of confusion as to whether the band would be playing or not - Dave and Segs were always going to be DJ-ing, The Cracked Actors and the Black Bombers were always going to be providing live musical entertainment, I was (ahem!) always going to be behind the merchandise table with CDs and T-shirts a-plenty, but it was never actually advertised as a Ruts D.C. gig... a few days earlier I had a phone conversation with Segs which went along the lines of 'so if we were to borrow some drums and amps and play as a three-piece, what songs could we play?' Good question! 
My good friend Big Andy (who is!) joined me behind the merchandise desk while The Black Bombers (great garage-y rock'n'roll, definitely worth keeping an eye on) and The Cracked Actors (reggae/ska stuff, good but they played for a bit too long for me) did their stuff and Dave and Segs span some tracks in between times. We'd had a 'so what songs could we play then?' chat in the dressing room earlier in the evening and had come up with a rough plan - in the event we played (from memory so I might be wrong) 'Whatever We Do' / 'It Was Cold' / 'Backbiter' / 'Dope For Guns' / Staring At The Rude Boys' / 'In A Rut' and an encore of 'Babylon's Burning' to scenes of not-inconsiderable audience mayhem. Segs and Dave told a couple of very funny stories, I met Roland Link who wrote 'Kicking Up A Racket', a biography of Stiff Little Fingers and who is currently writing a book on The Ruts / Ruts D.C. and everyone I spoke to thought the evening was a great success. I think it was too! 

On Saturday evening The Upper Cut journeyed to Welwyn Garden City to play at Grant and Rachel's joint 40th birthday party at Panshanger Golf Club. It had been a while since I'd played at an event such as this - I always remind myself that the live entertainment is only a small part of the evening (after all, it's the person or people that the party is being thrown for that should be the centre of attention don't you think?) and that for that reason it's not a 'gig' as such, more a gathering of family and friends that happens to have a disco and a live band. I suppose this is all to make me feel better when the band is all but ignored which is something that so often happens at nights like this - we weren't ignored this time but you could feel people wondering why we were there and why the disco wasn't happening all evening. That said we did get some nice comments from a few people and there was no outright hostility so overall it was definitely a 'more-pluses-that-minuses' sort of evening - and the band hadn't played for a while so it was good to all get together again.

Sunday morning rehearsals seem to be the way of things with Back To Zero, and this week it was my turn for a local one - Andy, Sam, Squirrel and myself amassed outside RnR Studios in Uxbridge at 10am and waited...and waited... and waited... eventually a sheepish lad turned up to let us in mumbling about 'forgetting to put the clocks forward'. Well, I guess we've all done it haven't we? Over the next four hours we ran through all the material that we're intending to play at next month's gigs, and I have to say that it's all sounding rather fine. There's often a moment in rehearsals when you stop sounding like a band of musicians and start sounding like a 'band' - ours was somewhere on Sunday morning. There's still a keyboard player to add and one of the original singers is going to guest on a few songs but as it stands at the moment Back To Zero are already sounding good to my ears.
After a couple of late nights and an early morning I spent a fair bit of Sunday afternoon asleep - I'm sure that didn't used to happen when I was younger? Hmmm... anyway at 8.30 in the evening I was using the magic of Skype to talk to Rich, Tom and Ian of Music Scene Investigation, and from 9-10pm we all participated in the latest podcast of said programme. We had three good songs to review this time (that's not always the case!) as you can tell if you watch the show here - I still think that song 3 was the best don't you?
Of course after being asleep half the day I was wide awake at 10 o'clock in the evening, which meant that I was able to pop down to The Crown And Treaty where an all-day festival of original (as opposed to cover) bands was taking place. When I got there a rather scary black metal band were playing (sadly I don't know their name - incidentally if they ever read this and think 'hang on a minute, we're not black metal' than I apologise profusely!) and I'd arranged to meet my old mates Pete (still recovering from last week's SLF gig) Grant and Sam with whom I cowered at the back (it wasn't much quieter there to be honest!) before moving nearer to the stage to watch Frowser. I last saw them many (15?) years ago when I remember them being very impressive although it wasn't really my type of thing - Grant is a bit of a fan, Sam is less convinced and Pete missed them as he decided he'd had enough to drink and went home. I must say he did look as though he'd been there a while... anyway they were still very impressive although they're still not really my type of thing, although it must be said that it's great to see them still playing and indeed writing new material. However I have to agree with Sam's analysis that you 'watch them and think they're great but you can't remember a single song in the morning'. He's correct - I think they are, and no you can't...

Happy Easter everyone! Yeah! 

So THAT'S how they got their name!

Big Jim Sullivan died on Tuesday. In a career that spanned over fifty years he played on countless recordings for any number of artists as diverse as David Bowie and Englebert Humperdinck (his Wikipedia page has a mind-boggling list of records that feature him - take a look here and be amazed!) He pioneered the use of effects like wah-wah and talk box, was involved in the development of Marshall Amplifiers, gave guitar lessons to Ritchie Blackmore, taught Jimmy Page to read music (Page became known as 'Little Jim' when playing sessions in the 1960s to differentiate him from Big Jim - they appeared on many records together) and may well have owned the first Gibson Les Paul in Britain. And if all that wasn't enough, we was from down the road from us in Uxbridge. You may not have known his name, you almost certainly won't have known his face, but you've definitely heard him play - a true guitar great if ever there was one, he leaves behind an extraordinary contribution to British guitar playing and popular music in general.  Cheers Big Jim.

Two gigs for your humble narrator this weekend, the first of which saw The Upper Cut make their latest visit to The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Friday. With heavy rain all evening I for one was fearful of a low turnout but the pub was filling up by the time we went on at 9.30, and the scene was set for a good night. It wasn't all plain sailing however - we went to start our first song Terry the bass signalled that he was in trouble, with no sound was coming from his instrument; a process of elimination revealed that his guitar lead had failed so I found him one and we were off into an even better gig than last week's Harefield bash. No new songs this time (we always try to play something different at regular venues but time constraints meant that we didn't get time to rehearse for this one) but we pulled out some older  songs that we hadn't played for quite a while, and by the end there was a full dancefloor and an offer from Noel and Bridie to play at their 25th anniversary party later this year. Excellent! Oh and my Blues Deluxe sounded great - apparently the fault was a dry solder joint on a PCB that was causing the channels to switch indiscriminately of their own accord; since I had the volume of the channel that I wasn't using set to zero this had the effect of turning the sound on and off. Very strange!

But if that was a good night - and it definitely was a good night - then Saturday took things to even greater heights, as Ruts D.C. ventured up to Birmingham for a gig at The Hare And Hounds. I must admit I spent much of the journey North drifting in and out of consciousness (it'd had been a late night and I'd been working in the shop all morning... I must be getting old!) although I did wake up in time to hear Seamus exclaim 'Did you see that road name? It's an anagram!' as we passed Sarehole Road...

Mick the promoter is a friend of Dave and Seamus having put The Duplicates on several times, and he's an absolutely splendid chap who distinguished himself by taking orders for curry when we arrived and then driving off to get them himself. Top man! 

With Nick behind the mixing desk our soundcheck went well, and with people already arriving spirits are high. Support band The Cracked Actors got things off to a good start - nothing to do with David Bowie (sadly!) but very good all the same. I spend a bit of time behind the merchandise desk during their set - from what people are saying they like me have been looking forward to this show for a long time...

By the time we go on at half past ten the place is so full that we can hardly get to the stage. It doesn't take too many songs before it's clear that this is going to be a night to remember for all concerned, and when we finish our show there are people literally queueing up to to shake hands and say thanks. One guy tells me that my guitar sounded great and then says that he had been 'waiting 30 years to hear those songs' - I just say thanks and then say something like 'I've been waiting that long to hear them too'. And I have. Well - haven't we all?

Dave called early Sunday afternoon. He'd been at the venue until 3 am talking to people, he couldn't believe the reaction that we'd got and labelled the show 'a triumph'. It's hard to disagree.

What better way to finish a fine weekend's gigging than to go to The Swan in Iver on Sunday evening for this month's open mic night. Myself and Big Al Reed teamed up with Bob Pearce on drums and Tony Eden on bass to deliver a five song set to the assembled multitude, and very good fun it was too. I also enjoyed seeing Les Payne playing some acoustic songs - he told a great story about meeting John Lennon in Germany in 1961; apparently Lennon was less than friendly, claiming that he would make it in the music business before Les would. 'And he did' said Les with a smile, adding 'and that's why they spelt their group name with an 'a' instead of an 'e' - ''Beat Les''...'

Well I don't know about you, but I really hope that's true!!