'The only way to hear the noise is when it's good and loud...'

Lemmy. The very word itself is synonymous with rock 'n' roll excess. I first saw Motorhead in 1978 around the time of their first album and they were utterly unlike any other group that I'd heard - I saw them quite a few times over the next 30-odd years and that description still held true. Here they are in 1980 with Fast Eddie on guitar and Filthy Phil on drums, although in many ways it could have been filmed at any time during their reigh of terror. The word 'legend' gets overused these days but it definitely applies to Lemmy and indeed Motorhead doesn't it? It's sad to see him go.

In the meantime here we are in that weird bit between Christmas and New Year - shouldn't I be doing something? Anything?

This is my first bit of time off in ages. Ages. Well it feels like it is anyway - after three-odd months of Ruts D.C. gigs interspersed with local shows and working in the shop having a few days with nothing definite to do feels like something of an unexpected luxury. To this end I've got Columbo on the telly as I write this ('Murder By The Book' since you were wondering, a very good and if I'm honest somewhat distracting episode!) and no real plan for the rest of the day. It's been a while since I've been in this position.

There have been a few gigs since the last entry in these hallowed pages, the first of which saw Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks visit The Dolphin in Uxbridge. It being the Friday before Christmas no one was really sure how many people would be in attendance, and as Noel the guv'nor uttered the words 'you might as well go on now as I don't think it'll get any better' it seemed that our worst fears were realised. Our first set was witnessed by a handful of people at best, and as we began our second set nothing had changed - however about halfway through the place suddenly filled up, to such an extent that Noel asked us to play a third set which saw some very, er, interesting scenes on the dance floor and an end to our evening that couldn't have been more different to the beginning.
There was more from Big Al and the boys on Wednesday at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale and The Three Steps in Cowley on Christmas Eve. The first night was something of a party for Al who knows quite a few people in the area and who had invited pretty much all of them along. As far as I can tell they all turned up, which made for a suitably lively show although the next night might just have eclipsed it in the (in)sanity stakes. With keyboard king Chris away visiting family we considered song options well, although still somehow encored with 'Delilah' which usually has a piano intro - I managed to play something like it but I don't think that it would have impressed a keyboard player. The same line-up then played an afternoon show at The Horns in Watford on Boxing Day while in the evening The Upper Cut played The Dolphin for what I think is the fourth year running. When we arrived at The Horns it was pretty much empty and although there were a few in by the time we started at half past four it was probably the quietest that I'd seen the venue. Still it's a great place to play and we gave a good show with Al on form and the band all playing well. The Upper Cut gig went well too although again there wasn't too many people there when we started. Still the place filled up and despite the fact that I personally thought that we perhaps didn't play as well as we could have we were rebooked for next December 26th so I guess we must have done something right. 

And Ruts D.C. began work on our new album 'Psychic Attack' in Perry Vale Studios with engineer Pat Collier and producer James Knight, The sessions went inordinately well and as is customary I made some scribbly notes - since I appear to have a bit of time on my hands at the moment (!) I'll do my best to get them typed up here in the next few days. In the meantime Columbo is hassling the bad guy as only he can, although I can't help thinking that it might be time to listen to 'No Sleep 'til Hammersmith'...

Let it bleed

Did you want to be old when you were young? I don't mean 'old' old, like your nan or grandad or the people who lived a few doors down, I mean old as in 'grown up' so that you could do the things that the grown ups do, like stay up late. I certainly wanted to stay up late when I was a kid, although thinking back I don't know why I thought that would make things better or more exciting. Strange... maybe one of the differences between being old and young is that when you're young you want to be older and when you're old you want to be younger? Anyway when I was about 8 or 9 I had a nosebleed. It was a Saturday evening and I had really bad hay fever (still have!) I blew my nose rather a lot before I went to bed, and I woke up a little after going to sleep thinking that my nose was running. When I looked down there was blood everywhere. Everywhere. It literally felt like it was pouring out of my face, which I suppose it was if you think about it. My mum screamed when she saw me. She and my dad tried to stop it with all the usual methods - cold flannels, holding the bridge of your nose etc - but to no avail. After about an hour things were getting serious, and mum called the doctor out. He was an old (and therefore allowed to stay up late) chap called Dr. Fenton - when he examined me he said that I'd burst a blood vessel in my nose and that it would eventually stop and that I'd be 'ok in the morning'. I think it finally stopped after just over 2 hours. I still get nosebleeds today, in fact I had one earlier this week. Horrible things.

So - why am I telling you this? Well, by the time the nosebleed had stopped, 'Match Of The Day' was about to start on the television. This was a mythical programme to me as some of my school mates were allowed to stay up late enough to watch it, and they said that it was better than 'The Big Match' which was the Sunday afternoon football programme that I used to watch with great enthusiasm. Anyway because I was still awake (and feeling rather weird as I recall) I was allowed to watch 'Match Of The Day'. It was good, but not worth losing half of the blood in your body for.

I had another nosebleed on Friday morning. It was nearly 6 a.m. and once again I'd woken up thinking that my nose was running; it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the one I've described above but it was still pretty unpleasant. By the time it had stopped I realised I wasn't going to get back to sleep and so decided to go downstairs for a cup of coffee. After I'd made it I decided to put the telly on, which caused a moment of mild panic as the volume was quite high and I had to turn it down quickly so as not to wake anybody up. When the picture came on 'Columbo' was playing - strange, why is that on at this time of day? It's normally shown in the afternoon on one of those weird channels that never seem to work properly. You know the ones. When I was a lad I remember avidly watching 'Columbo' on television, where the scruffy little chap in the raincoat would outwit the bad guy every time. I loved the way that he'd zero in on the murderer, seeming to be naive or even stupid then wearing them down with his peculiar mannerisms and stories of his wife, or his cousin, or his wife's cousin, or Burt who serves him chili, then leaving the murderer (who therefore thought they'd got away with it) before reappearing with the words 'just one more thing...' when they thought they'd seen the last of him. Great stuff. I even enjoyed the later episodes although the '60s and '70s ones are still the best for me. It was and remains one of the best television series ever created, and as such it was sad to turn on Breakfast Television on Friday morning to see a clip of it being played, because that could only mean that Peter Falk had died. Shame.

Last night I depped in The Repertoire Dogs. I'd been looking forward to this gig since I got a call a while back from Good Old Boys / Ali Mac Band guitarist Simon Bishop, who asked me if I'd be interested in playing with said band. Well of course I would, not least because their regular guitarist is none other than Mick Ralphs. Yes, that Mick Ralphs, the bloke out of Mott The Hoople and Bad Company. Strange but true. Anyway not long after this I got a call from Nick the singer who explained the situation - Hud's on drums, Nigel's on bass, Freya and Ann are on vocals and it's a 50th birthday party somewhere near Harlow. 'Simon will go through the set with you as I'm not in the least bit musical' he said cheerily, before going on to be very disparaging about his own vocal abilities. He then revealed that he'd 'started the band for a bet' after going to a Bryan Adams concert with a friend - 'and here we are, 11 years later'. Like I say, I was looking forward to this one...

As we arrived in Hastingwood I realised that this was a rather different area to the one that The Price visited on numerous occasions when we used to play at The Square in Harlow. We're playing in a marquee in the garden - maybe that should be 'grounds' - of a rather large house, and the first thing we notice is that there's a generator humming rather noisily nearby. 'I bet that's a note that's just out of tune with us' says Nigel as we're setting up; we decide that if we play loudly enough then it won't matter. I'd only met Nigel briefly a couple of times before, he's just finished a tour with comedian Rich Hall (where he was known as Horst Furst II - excellent!) and plays regularly with Half A Meal Ticket among others. We run through a few beginnings, middles and ends before the guests start arriving, it's all sounding good and a fine evening is in prospect. There's an acoustic duo on before us, they've both seen us 'playing in local pubs' and really like our version of 'Don't Stop Believing'. No one in the band reacts although I expect they were all thinking roughly the same as me - 'perhaps there's another band with the same name around here then. And they must look like us as well...'

After a search for an appropriate lead Freya's iPod provides some background music as food and drink starts to appear; we're all sitting around a table near the marquee when a loud POP comes from with general direction of the marquee; the music stops, the lights go out and quite a few people make a noise along the lines of 'OOOOH!' Investigation reveals that someone behind the (makeshift) bar had plugged a fridge in, causing a current surge large enough to melt the extention cable. With people complaining that were no lights on in the portaloos things are unplugged, the generator turned back on and everything returns to normal.

We start 'Jumpin Jack Flash' at 9.15 to what might best be described as 'polite indifference' from all concerned - a shame as I thought we were sounding good. When someone comes up to me in the interval as says words to the effect of 'everyone's enjoying it, they're just not dancing' it makes me feel a bit better, and our second set gets a bit more of a reaction although there are no demands for an encore at the end. As we turn our amps off Nigel said 'well played that man' which means a lot to me coming from a player as good as he is; I think I did ok but a few of the songs were in unusual keys which threw me a bit - if I get chance to play with them again I'll make a better job of it. No really, I will. And it was a shame that the audience were a bit subdued as I really had been looking forward to the show. Oh well. You can't win 'em all. Unless you're Columbo of course. 'Oh sir, just one more thing...'