Magic And Loss

Some of these blog pieces more-or-less write themselves, some take a bit of coaxing and some take a lot of work. A lot of work, as in a 'why am I doing this to myself?' - style lot of work. This one is quite hard to write because of the subject matter, which is strange as there should be a lot of positive things to say about friendship, kindred spirits, feeling part of a team... they're all good things, but you don't get something for nothing do you?

I was on my way home on Thursday night when my phone made the slightly annoying car horn - type noise that it makes when I receive a text message. I should change the sound, but I never seem to get around to it. Or something. Anyway I took the phone out of my pocket and read the message. Then I read the message again. And again. It was telling me that Tom Edwards had died. But he can't have. He's only young. And he's Tom, he can't have... 
I first meet Tom a couple of years of years ago, but he's one of those people that it's hard to remember a time that you didn't know them, if you know what I mean. I played the 'I Need A Dodge' gig at Koko with him in 2015, went to the Marshall factory with him, saw him play with Adam Ant, played the riff to 'Day Tripper' on his guitar in Abbey Road Studios... I still don't really know what to say about it all, other than that he was a fabulous musician and a lovely man. I'll miss him - and I know that I won't be the only one.

Harlow is perhaps not the most obvious place to provoke any real emotion, or so you might have thought - but if you'd have been there on Saturday night then you'd have known that 'emotion' was most definitely on the agenda, as after several false alarms The Square finally closed it's doors for the very last time. I first played there with The Price in 1986, and just over 30 years later I played three songs at the last ever gig there. But what a last ever gig it was my friends... 
First band on The Orphans feature Oliver son-of-Simon-from-The-Newtown-Neurotics Lomond on guitar (to be pedantic, on my guitar for most of their set as he broke a string on his) and roared through a breathless half hour set (guitar, drums and vocals - not a bass guitar in sight!) to the approval of the rapidly arriving audience. After saying a quick hello to Steve Lamacq - if I remember rightly he was involved in getting The Price our first gig at the venue - in the downstairs bar it was back upstairs to catch local heroes The Newtown Neurotics who bought the proverbial house down. To be fair they were on safe hometown ground but their excellent performance didn't rest on any laurels, with frontman / songwriter Steve Drewett in fine form throughout. And what can I say about Eddie And The Hot Rods that I haven't already said in these hallowed pages? They've always been one of my favourite bands, and this show was as good as any I have ever seen them play. But it was different, very different - from my point of view at least.
Back in December I went to see The John Otway Big Band at The Borderline; I'd have gone along anyway as they're always well worth seeing but I went up to meet Hot Rods guitar hero Richard Holgarth (who also plays for Otway and was the sound man at The Square when The Price used to play there) to discuss the possible purchase of a Gibson SG guitar that he was considering selling. During the evening the subject of the Square's imminent closure came up, and he invited me up to the gig. At some point I said something like 'I'd love to play at that' - at which point he suggested that I play with Eddie And The Hot Rods. I thought about his offer for, ooh, two or three milliseconds before saying yes...
As I fought my way through the sold out crowd towards the stage I reflected on the situation - no rehearsal, not even a run through at the soundcheck, although I did have a chance to try my guitar through the amplifier that I was borrowing for the occasion. We only decided which songs I was going to play with them in the pub opposite around 3 hours ago. I eventually got to the stage as Hot Rods singer Barrie introduced me  - I never thought that would ever happen I can tell you - and I picked up my guitar. 'Are you ok?' said Richard cheerily as I tried a couple of chords - yes I was ok, and I was even more ok when 'Hard Driving Man' started. And there I was, little old me playing with Eddie and his Hot Rods. If you'd have told me that I was going to do that 40 years ago... 'Gloria' was next before we were joined by Jim Jones (he was DJ-ing after the gig) for 'Born To Be Wild' - and all too soon it was over. The gig, my time in The Hot Rods, one of the great independent venues, everything. There were more than a few tears, with more than a few of them coming from me. It had  been a lousy few days. You don't know what you've got until it's gone do you?

Oh and in case you're wondering, I bought the SG. Of course I did. Well, something good had to come out of it all didn't it?    

Yeah I know this isn't very well written and is all a bit garbled - as I say, sometimes this is quite hard to write... sad times...

Thinking outside of the boxset

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

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

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

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

Sing something simple

Since the euphoria of Thursday evening (yeah, sorry for getting a bit carried away but, well, you know how it is...) The Upper Cut have played two very different shows, united by, for want of a better word, 'oddness'...

On Friday night we returned to Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace a little over a month since our first visit there. When we arrived the atmosphere seemed a bit strange, maybe more serious than last time - upon saying hello to the guv'nor he immediately began telling us not to play too loud. This never gets things off to a good start - joking aside it is very hard to play the type of music we play with conviction when you're worried about the guy in front on you telling you to turn it down every 90 seconds. Actually thinking about it, it's hard to play any type of music under those circumstances. As a result I found our first set to be probably the least enjoyable performance that I've given in absolutely ages. I found my mind wandering at one point to such an extent that I went completely wrong, and can't even recall which song it was in such was my disinterest. This has bothered me ever since - having spent much of the last blog posting blathering on about how lucky I am to do what I do I then spend part of my next gig with my mind somewhere else entirely and as a result play badly. Not good frankly. I went to the bar feeling very low indeed - whereupon three lads told me how great they thought we were sounding, and another chap came over to ask for some Rod Stewart, a lady requested some Free and Bad Company - yes, you've guessed it, the second set was a stormer with a full dancefloor and a great audience reaction. And at the end the guv'nor came over and told me that we were the best band that they'd ever had there, I was the best guitarist that he'd ever seen (!) and if he gave us more money would we play until 1am.

Sometimes I don't think that I will ever understand people.

Saturday it was time for our friend Simon the DJ's birthday bash, at The General Eliott in Uxbridge. Although I've been to quite a few gigs at the pub the band had not played there before - when we arrived (in the pouring rain!) Simon was still setting up his DJ equipment; although we were due to go on at 9.30 we eventually started a quarter of an hour late. Once again our first set wasn't without problems - Terry was suffering from a bad throat meaning that we had to be careful as to which songs we chose, and having had something of a bad hay fever day I suddenly found that couldn't hear out of my right ear. I often get earwax / sinus problems at this time of year, but halfway through a show is not a good time for them to develop! Once again I found myself approaching the bar at halftime with a long face - whereupon Simon played 'Roxette' by Dr. Feelgood and suddenly all was right in my little world. It doesn't take much sometimes does it? Our second set couldn't have been more different from the first - Terry's voice seemed to improve, I found a way to hear through not being able to hear (if you see what I mean!) and the band rose to the occasion to give a fine performance. That's better. And after we'd finished Simon was pressganged into singing 'Baby I Love You' with Terry on bass, Roger on drums and some of his young lady friends on backing vocals. 'Can you make it sound jangly?' said he as I handed him my Gibson SG - I didn't like to tell him that I wasn't really sure how it had sounded during our show so I wasn't much help to him now...

During the course of last Wednesday evening I had mentioned to Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes that I was intending to attend the open mic / jam session on Sunday at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge; as we talked about it he surprised me by expressing an interest in coming along and maybe even playing; I then surprised myself by expressing an interest in singing - yes, singing - a song or two with him... so it was then that I found myself on stage with him and Upper cut bassman Terry playing and indeed singing 'Around And Around' and 'Pills'. Now that's something that I didn't think that would ever type! I must admit that I really enjoyed it - I can't see myself fronting a band but it just goes to show what you can do if you try. And I don't think that the chap who told me that he really liked the band (!) and asked how long we'd been playing together was taking the mickey?

And last night I found myself in what for me were the unfamiliar surroundings of Madame Jo Jo's in Soho for the first in a series of 12 Monday club nights being hosted by The Duel. Broadly speaking the nights will feature reggae and punk (not sure about calling it 'Reggie' though!) and judging by the first night it's going to go very well. Dave and Segs from Ruts D.C. were Dj-ing, The Duel played a great set, and people were still arriving as I was leaving - clearly the night was young, although sadly I'm not and I had decided to leave early enough to get a train home. Ooh, I really do sound old don't I?

See how I suffer for my art!

Well I thoroughly enjoyed my time on Music Scene Investigation, and I'm pleased to say that I will hopefully be appearing again later in the year. (Well, fairly obviously I won't be appearing again earlier in the year but you know what I mean.) Ian, Tom and Rich were all very helpful, I managed to work Skype correctly (and what an amazing thing that is!) and if you didn't catch it then click here to see me wearing unfeasibly large headphones and sounding almost as though I know what I'm talking about. Excellent!

And apologies for the Warhol-esque nonsense above; having had one of these MacBook thingys for Gawd knows how long I've only just worked out how to take pictures with it!

In the meantime that was my first weekend for a while without any gigs (bah!) and although I never think I'm particularly busy I've just had a look back through the last few months worth of postings and considering these dark days of recession and depression I've not had a bad run overall. I've spoken to quite a few musicians lately who have had nowhere near as much work so I'm not going to complain (for once!) Still it's got me thinking about the nature of what it is that I do...

For quite a few of the shows over the last few months I've been obliged to learn songs specifically for the performance, or to learn different arrangements of otherwise familiar material. This has been both good fun and not a little daunting - I'll say now that the Killers song 'Mr. Brightside' which we played at the York show back at the start of May is one of the most difficult songs I've encountered in ages. It might not sound too hard but the intro and verse chords feature some enormous stretches (have a look at this clip of them performing it and see you'll see what I mean) which have never been a strong point of mine. Their guitarist must have very big hands, or very long fingers, or both! I also learned a Michael Buble song for that show which was easier to play but had the added pressure of being the couple's first dance, with all the scrutiny that that entails. From my point of view this sort of thing normally means a fair bit of time listening to the original tracks, looking at You Tube clips and generally attempting to work out what's going on in the song. There are numerous guitar tablature sites on the Internet, many of which can be very useful and save quite a bit of time although their accuracy is sometimes questionable as anybody can post onto them.

At the other end of the scale there was the Upper Cut gig in Staines a couple of days earlier where we were billed as a Rod Stewart tribute band - faced with a number of requests (!) we busked a reasonable version of 'The First Cut Is The Deepest' which went down well with the Rod fans. Something like that depends on several factors - fairly obviously some songs are easier to play than others even if you all know the song well it can still catch you out; there's also things like how well you can all hear each other to take into consideration, as well as how good the band is in the first place. Then there's how good your ear is - can you anticipate a chord change correctly if you've never played it before? Most of us have good days and bad days at this so you can only hope that it's one of your good days when you need to do it!

And then there was 'The Servant' at last weekend's gig with T.V. Smith which I managed to make a mistake in before the vocals had even started - and we might never play it again so I can't make amends!

So what's the alternative to spending hours in front of a CD player or computer screen? Well for the jobbing rock guitarist there really isn't one. Horn players are invariably excellent sight readers with their parts written out for them - guitar and bass players rarely if ever have anything provided for them, and most of them don't sight read conventional music anyway. I suppose this gives rise to a vicious circle where players don't learn to read music as they're never given anything to read, but parts aren't provided because most players can't read them. A notable exception to this are West End theatre shows and the like, but that's another subject for another time (and let's face it, another guitarist!)

And then there's the question of sound. It's fairly obvious to even the most casual listener that the guitars on a heavy metal recording sound a lot different to those on a funk tune. Playing the correct notes is only part of the story, you've got to sound right as well. Leaving aside the fact that this could be seen as spurious justification for owning a large number of guitars, amplifiers and effect pedals (perish the thought!) there's actually a serious point here - I agonised over which guitar to play at the afore-mentioned York show for quite some time, eventually choosing my SG as it was the easiest guitar to play the scary 'Mr Brightside' chords on. I nearly went for a Stratocaster (I needed a guitar with a double cutaway so that I could play chord high up the neck; there wasn't much in it to be honest) but I think I chose correctly in the end. This might seem like nitpicking but it's something that I find is spending a bit of time thinking about and indeed trying different instruments - the right guitar can make the gig, the wrong one can literally break it.

With regards to effect pedals, I've never owned a great number of these as I like to try to keep things as simple as possible, and the ones that I do have are fairly traditional types like booster pedals (to make solos louder), distortion, chorus, echo etc. I was talking to a guitarist recently who had a huge array of processors on a custom built pedal board because, as he put it, 'I might need play "Livin' On A Prayer" one minute and then "Mustang Sally" the next'. Hmm... I've had to do that sort of thing too but I've still only got a pedal or two wired up at any one time. This is not to say that I'm right and he's wrong (far from it - he's a lot more successful than I am!) but it does indicate a different approach to the same situation. As I say there's no right or wrong here - I just prefer to get different sounds out of the guitar and amplifier. With that in mind I'm starting to realise that I could do with a more versatile amp to go with my Fender combo which are great for clean sounds but not quite so effective on rockier material. Then again I could just get myself a decent overdrive pedal... actually haven't I got one of those somewhere?

Anyway I can't sit here typing, I've got work to do - I'm depping in The Duplicates at the end of the month and have nearly 2 hours of material to learn. The circle is unbroken... better get on with it then!

There's no business like shoe business (sorry!)

It was a good if rather different evening on Tuesday when myself and the long-suffering Shirley went to The Peacock Theatre in London to see Chicago Blues Brothers saxman Richard Pardy in the musical 'Shoes'. Actually it wasn't that easy to see him even though he was on the stage for the whole show as the band were behind a curtain onto which various projections were, er, projected although we did spot him from time to time; it was certainly possible to hear him and indeed the rest of the band, all of whom sounded very good in what was a fine energetic show, with some spectacular dancing and brilliant singing from the cast in a 2 hour blitz of sound and light. I don't mind admitting that a musical on the subject of footwear wasn't something that I ever thought I'd enjoy, but it was very well put together and as such was a very impressive production.

On Thursday it was off to The Royal Albert Hall to see Roger Daltrey perform 'Tommy' as part of the latest series of Teenage Cancer Trust concerts. Myself and Big Andy called in at The Queens Arms on our way to the venue to meet up with legendarily fervent Who fan Steve Whiston; when we got there he'd obviously been there enjoying the hospitality for a while and was in good form - by the time we left he'd distinguished himself by coming back from the bar and walking up to 2 lads who he thought was us and carrying on talking to them where he'd left off with us. They were about 20 years younger than us! (And if you're thinking 'well he must have been pretty out of it to make that mistake' then have a look at this clip from the show - he's the chap in the suit and striped shirt to Daltrey's right... yes, he's my mate!!)

Now as someone who could politely be described as a fan of The Who I must say at this point that 'Tommy' is one of my least favourite albums by them - the original album always sounds rather weak to my ears, although I must admit that live recordings from the late '60's / early '70's are almost uniformly amazing and show how well it worked as a stage piece. As the show began (appropriately enough with 'Overture') I wondered how it was all going to go - Daltrey looked as great as ever but only Simon Townshend was recognisable from Who shows (I think the band backed Daltrey on last year's American gigs) and there was much speculation as to whether Simon's big brother would make an appearance. 4 or 5 numbers in it was evident that, yes, it's much better live than on record, although much improved by the films on the screen above the band. A rare (and to honest rather uncertain) performance of 'Cousin Kevin' ended with the lights dimming and some acoustic guitar picking that wasn't coming from anyone already on the stage - and suddenly Pete Townshend was at the microphone singing a solo version of 'The Acid Queen' amid scenes of audience pandemonium that made you realise just how much the crowd missed his contribution to proceedings. Then, as suddenly as he'd arrived he was gone, and 5 seconds into 'Do You Think It's Alright?' everything had returned to normal i.e. everybody speculating when / if he would return. Meanwhile 'Tommy' continued with 'Pinball Wizard' sounding like the classic we all know it to be and the finale of 'See Me Feel Me' / 'Listening To You' bringing the proverbial house down. A new Daltrey composition 'Days Of Light' followed before 'Pictures Of Lily' was prefaced by a story of how John Entwistle's high harmonies were an underrated part of The Who's sound. 'I Can See For Miles' sounded fabulous, but you could feel the audience willing Townshend to return; he eventually reappeared - rather reluctantly I thought - for 'Baba O'Riley' (which also featured Charlie Siem on violin) before 'Without Your Love' finished off the evening. It had been an interesting night, with Daltrey in fine voice and where slick session men ruffled their immaculately unkempt hair as they attempted to recreate the sound and fury of The 'Orrible 'Oo. I'm not entirely sure that they achieved that particular goal, but they sounded good - if a little 'nice' - to my ears.

Saturday saw The Flying Squad return to the stage for the first time this year, for a gig at Tropic At Ruislip supporting Eddie And The Hot Rods. We were offered the gig last month, and it was too good to turn down despite the fact that Andy (vocals) and myself didn't actually have a band; he suggested that he ask his old friend and drummer extraordinaire Simon Ash (he of the 'Ash Bash' gig back in June 2008) if he'd be interested in depping with us, and with Mike was reinstated on bass Andy and myself came up with a setlist, e-mails were e-mailed and we met at Ruff Rockers at 4 p.m. for a run through. We played the songs once, ran over a couple of the trickier numbers again, checked beginnings and endings and finished 2 hours after we started. Had we done enough? We'd all know soon enough...

We arrived at the venue just as The Hot Rods were loading their gear in - great to see Richard Holgarth again (he mixed the sound at The Square in Harlow when The Price used to play there back in the '80's and '90's) who has just started using Stratocasters rather than SGs as he broke the headstock off one of his old ones and has 'moved on to something sturdier'. This gave us chance for some guitar nerdery as we compared our guitars with plenty of observations along the lines of 'ooh this one's got a different neck radius' that easily scared off anybody unfortunate enough to get caught within earshot.

9.10 and with a healthy crowd in we kick off with 'I Can Tell'. I think I was a better guitarist at the rehearsal than at the show (bugger!) and we had the odd mad moment here and there but overall the band played well even getting an encore which is always a good thing for a support band. Afterwards we did a roaring trade in CD's and t-shirts (thanks to Shirley and East on the merchandise!) and declared our evening to be a success. Oh and in case you were wondering, Eddie And The Hot Rods were absolutely brilliant - but you knew I'd say that didn't you? Well - I've never made any secret of the fact that they're one of my very favourite bands, and with a setlist drawing heavily on their first album 'Teenage Depression' (can that really be 35 years old? Yes it can, and I should know as I bought it when it came out!) as well as some later songs alongside the inevitable 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' they showed just how underrated they were and indeed continue to be. A great evening all round.

And it should be a great evening this Sunday 3rd April at The Load of Hay with The Duplicates - come on down!

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'...

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'?!?

25 x 4 - The Continuing Adventures Of The Price

Well - that was the weekend that was. Here are a few thoughts and reflections on the last 48 hours written quickly at the times when I could get near a computer. Hope it all makes sense...

Saturday midday

Meat Loaf is on the telly (hang on, I'll just turn it over... ah that's better, LFC TV - well, they won this week so I like 'em again!) and I'm starving. I shouldn't be as I had some beans on toast at the excellent Frank's Cafe in Uxbridge Station earlier but I am. Or maybe - just maybe - I'm nervous?
I re-strung my guitar last night and I made a right mess of it. I've restrung guitars hundreds, thousands, even countless times but it was like I didn't know what I was doing. Weird. While I was attempting to resurrect my ailing SG I got a text message from Malcolm who had just been singing along with some of our songs to practice for the gigs - he felt like he had 'no control' over his voice. Seems I'm not the only one feeling the strain
This day may go slowly; days like these often do. We planned a surprise birthday party for my dad's 65th birthday (incredibly that was 13 years ago!) and when the day finally came it seemed to last forever. About an hour before we were due to leave for what he thought was to be a night of boxing nostalgia I felt as though my stomach was connected directly to the mains electricity; when we finally got him through the door to where everyone was waiting for him I was instantly ok. Amazing. But there's no subterfuge today - we all know exactly what's involved.

Saturday 3 p.m.

Right! I'm about to leave to meet up with everyone at East's for a quick acoustic run-through before going to the venue. I've checked everything twice. Three times. Several times. I don't know how many times. I know I've got everything but that doesn't matter, I'm going to check it one more time. Argh!

Sunday 10 a.m.

I've not long been up. My head aches. Not from drinking (honest!) for once as I only had a few pints; it was almost impossible to get to the bar such was the number of people in the building. No I think this is probably due to dehydration - I don't remember the last time I was sweating so much after 3 songs let alone at the end of a gig. Loads of people, so many surprises (Colin who used to come to the gigs with his brother Gary, Wayne who last saw us 20-odd years ago, Squirrel from the CBB band, and many many more) and more handshakes after the show than I've ever done before. Looking out and seeing practically everyone singing along with practically every song - how do they do that? My SG covered in sweat - or is it condensation? Grown men with tears in their eyes - and that was just the band. We're doing it again tonight. Why can't we do it every night?

Sunday 6 p.m.

My headache's gone. Good. I've checked all my gear again. And again. Time to go back to the venue. Good.

Monday 11.45 a.m.

Another headache, although this one can be accounted for... just spoken to East - he woke up feeling guilty. I told him that I don't think he did anything too untoward although I'm probably not the best person for him to ask... another amazing, emotional, sweat-soaked night. Despite working perfectly the previous night the power supply to my pedal board started to only work intermittently so I called the long-suffering Shirley who bought some PP3 batteries with her - good job it was such a local gig eh? At least that happened before the show - Huggy's bass amp stopped working (possibly overheated?) during our 4th song 'Crazy Times' so we unplugged my microphone and plugged him straight into the P.A. system. Well, it wouldn't be a Price gig if some things didn't go wrong would it? But plenty of other things went right, in fact it's hard to think of how the weekend could have been any better. If you were there you'll know what I mean.

'It's crazy what you could have had' as someone once sang, and it looks as though they were right. I don't know what I'm going to do tonight. Why can't we do that every night?

Well we might not be able to do it every night but here's the next night that we can - Friday 16th April at Tropic At Ruislip where we're supporting The Members, with local legends The Attendants also on the bill. It should be a great night, and there's a downloadable flier on our website that gets you in cheap! Excellent!