The Stranglers / Ruts DC tour 2017

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

Reading, working, peddling, jamming...

Well the busy times at Balcony Shirts continue, although I'm 'only' working four days there this week. Part of me is a bit relived - after all at times it's been far too much like having a 'real' job - while the other part of me has enjoyed it immensely. And I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's been great to earn a bit of money too. In a heroic attempt to not squander it all on beer and jollity I've bought myself a reassuringly expensive Carl Martin Quattro multi-effect pedal, the idea being that it should function as both a spare unit for Ruts D.C. gigs as well as being something that should fit into my luggage easier than my existing pedal board does and so should be useful for shows that we fly to. It could also be something that I might be able to use at Big Al and The Blistering Buicks shows, and with this in mind I took it along to our gig at The Battle Of Britain Club in Uxbridge last Friday. With Pete away elsewhere I was the sole guitarist for the weekend's gigs, which in some ways was unfortunate as the onset of hay fever had left me with a left ear full of wax to go along with the inevitable bunged up nose. Perhaps using an unfamiliar piece of kit wasn't the cleverest idea but I did it anyway - under the circumstances I thought that it went well although I don't mind admitting that I stood on the wrong pedal more than a few times. Well that's my excuse for the dreadful mess I made of the 'Whiskey In The Jar' riff anyway… by the time the next night's show at The Misty Moon in Northwood came around my ear had cleared a bit although it was still far from being 100%, which combined with England throwing away their one goal lead against Russia in The European Championships meant that I for one started our show with no little trepidation. Happily this proved to be unfounded - after a few songs people were dancing and our national football team's latest impression of The Keystone Cops seemed to have been all but forgotten by the end of our show.

The next night Big Al and myself ventured across to The Plough in Tilehurst near Reading where Ann and Steve from the covers band Hot Legs run a jam night. They've been badgering Al to attend for a while now so this seemed as good a time as any - when we arrived we were both struck with how friendly everyone was. This is not always the case at these sort of gatherings - they can be very cliquey - but here it bode well for a good evening. I was asked to play on an original 12 bar blues song with a couple of young ladies, after which Al and myself joined the house band for 'Willie And The Hand Jive', 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Let's Stick Together', all of which went splendidly well. From there a very varied evening saw performances of material as diverse as 'Ace Of Spades' and 'I Know What I Like' before I was cajoled into joining a couple of young lads for their songs - I'd had a few drinks by then but with Al's words 'what could possibly go wrong?' ringing in my ears I stumbled towards the stage. The two lads were very good - maybe a few too many notes for my liking but they certainly knew what they were doing. I chugged along cheerily on a funky version of 'Rambling On My Mind' hoping not to be given a solo. The guitar man smiled as he pointed at me and nodded - I played a lot less notes than him but it seemed to go down well. (Let's face it, I wouldn't be writing about it here if it hadn't!) Then he asked if I knew 'Little Wing' - yes I do although I've never played it in front of anyone. Then again I'd not met these boys until about 10 minutes ago so… after them the evening ended with a peculiar (and let's face it, very drunk) fellow who for want of a better word, dismantled 'Mustang Sally' and 'Money For Nothing'. I wouldn't have recognised them if he hadn't slurred the titles several times indiscriminately during his frankly astonishing performance. Yes I was on guitar, although I'm not quite sure what I doing there. Judging by the faces of the other musicians they weren't sure what they were there either. A suitably bizarre ending to a very enjoyable evening.

And I completely forgot to mention that at some point in the last few weeks I visited Tropic At Ruislip where I witnessed Stranglers tribute band The Dead Ringers (a last minute substitute for Straighten Out who I believe had to pull out when one of their members injured a hand) roaring through a set of Guildford's finest's songs and in my opinion doing a very good job. But don't take my word for it - the always-worth-reading Elvis In The Clouds blog has written this review of the show, summing the night up well and somehow mentioning me in the process. Strange - but true!

'To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness...'

Well, that was a very - make that very - busy few days in mad-guitar world. I wrote about it all when I got home in the early hours of this morning after playing with Ruts D.C. at Guilfest - to be honest with you, it was a bit of a rant. I was tired but I wanted to get my thoughts down, and while that's sometimes a good idea (if nothing else it helps to clear your head of whatever is rattling around in it at the time) it was somewhat coloured by the fact that I was still annoyed about our set earlier in the evening being cut short due to overrunning. Not good frankly. Not good at all. I've thought about reproducing it here but to be honest it doesn't read very well - it's very disjointed and it must be said not particularly pleasant to the band who were on before us who after introducing their 'last number' then proceeded to play three songs. The nicest thing I call them is 'hippie tosspots' - it then goes downhill from there, ending with a quote from a song that I played on Saturday evening. It's quite funny in places (even though I say so myself!) but I'm not sure that anything would be served by it being here.

Things had all been going so well up until that point. Thursday - which I don't mind saying seems like a lifetime ago after a weekend such as this - had seen a splendidly-enjoyable Ruts D.C. rehearsal (the studio had air conditioning which with temperatures outside in the 80s made it a very pleasant place to be!) after which your humble narrator appeared at The 100 Club with The London Sewage Company. We played well, and with The Morgellons and Menace also on good form it was a suitably energetic start to this run of shows.

Friday was a long - maybe that should be l-o-n-g - day. Vern the driver arrived in the bus to pick me up just after midday - by the time we'd collected everybody else (including meeting Cadiz Music supremo Richard England in a petrol station where he was with Jay and Paul from The Urban Voodoo Machine - surreal!) and journeyed to Southend it was 6pm. But the mood was good, and soundcheck at Chinnerys took no time at all. With a bit of time before the first band I walked up to The Railway Hotel - when I arrived landlord Dave Dulake was testing a Theremin that was sitting on top of the piano in the bar. I did several gigs with him a few years ago, and it was good to catch up with him again. The food there is good too! I got back to the club in time to see The Dogtown Rebels who began proceedings well; after them Eight Rounds Rapid were as excellent as ever, but with the temperature in the club soaring (oh for the previous day's air conditioning!) I went outside for a bit of air and was greeted with the sight of heavy rain and forked lightning across the sea. Scary! Our set went very well until water began leaking in from above Segs's head - someone gave him a comically small bucket (I think it was the sort that you build sandcastles with!) which provoked much merriment from all concerned, although it goes without saying that this could have been a very dangerous situation indeed. In the meantime Segs told some very funny stories about his time living in Southend, and despite the risk on electrocution our show went down well with band and audience alike.

Marc Whiles takes a well-earned
breather after having been
driven insane by Ruts D.C.'s
outrageous backstage demands.

Last week I'd received a call from Sex Pistols Experience drummer and manager Dave asking if I'd be available to dep with them at Guilfest on Saturday evening. Given the fact that I was already playing at The Penn Festival with Ruts D.C. that afternoon and that we were also playing Guilfest on Sunday a sensible answer might have been 'no' - but where's the fun in that? As we were on at 1.30pm the shows didn't clash, but there was the problem of getting me from Penn to Guildford. At this point my good friend Andy Miller (a.k.a. Big Andy) exhibited the same problem I had with the word 'no' and offered to drive me from gig to gig - when we arrived at the festival he was already in attendance and raring to go. With Marc Whiles stage managing (he's worked with us as a driver / tour manager on several occasions, and it was good to see him again) everything went according to plan, and we were on stage at exactly half past one. With more than a few Ruts and Ruts D.C. t-shirts in the crowd we had a better reaction than I for one originally thought that we might (we were on after Whigfield - really!) and all pronounced ourselves to be pleased with the show. After watching The Selecter (who were excellent) Big Andy set the controls for Guildford - after some confusion upon arrival we eventually we given wristbands and a car pass and were able to make our way to the Vive Le Rock stage where we met up with the rest of The Sex Pistols Experience and saw a few songs from The Bermondsey Joyriders and Imperial Leisure. It's showtime at seven o'clock - with five minutes to go there's no sign of Big Andy (he told me later that there were so many people in the tent that he literally couldn't get through to the backstage area!) and I can't get into his car to get the Steve Jones t-shirt that I'd planned to wear during the show so I have to go on in the striped shirt that I've been wearing all day. It had been a while since I last played with the band but everything fell into place straight away, and our 30-odd minute show went by in no time with (as this clip shows) the audience in the packed tent going crazy throughout. The only downside was that a lady was injured when some clown decided that it would be a good idea to crowd surf - she was taken away in an ambulance but was apparently well enough to leave hospital the next day. The Urban Voodoo Machine were up next, I hadn't seen them play for a while but they were as entertaining as ever although their last number didn't quite go according to plan. A scantily-clad young lady came on fire-eating - it was part of the act but clearly nobody had told the security man who ran past me and attempted to manhandle her from the stage. Singer Paul tried to stop him and things descended into chaos... by now things were over-running, and headline act The Buzzcocks were obliged to cut their set down, but with Pete Shelley sporting a beard and Steve Diggle as crazy as ever they didn't disappoint. Well, they certainly didn't disappoint me.

Big Andy and Dave Ruffy
 - sharp dressed men.

Big Andy and myself arrived back on site at five o'clock the next afternoon. I'd spoken to Dave earlier in the day when among other things we agreed that surely they wouldn't allow things to run late again - would they? Surely not? Oh well, we'd all know soon enough... I saw three-and-a-bit songs from Electric River (and very good they were too) before the rest of our band arrived and much jollity ensued. With The Ramonas roaring through their set we all agreed that the scene was set for a classic show. The Skints were on before us and the place was packed - this was indeed going to be a classic - and it was (including this version of 'Love In Vain' which I'd say is among the best versions that we've ever played) right up until the moment that Richard informed us that he'd been asked to tell us that we only had 8 minutes left. What?!? But we've still got 4 songs left to play... what followed was one of the strangest incidents that I've ever been part of on a stage, where we played a verse each from 'Staring At The Rude Boys' and 'West One (Shine On Me)' before finishing with a crazed 'Babylon's Burning' which ended with all the lights being switched off. Big Andy filmed it, and here it all is as it happened - strange but true. Afterwards there is much anger - why was this allowed to happen? Was nothing learned from the previous evening? Apparently not. But it had been a great weekend - and in case you were wondering which song I quoted in my scribbly spleen-vent scrawl when I got home this morning it was this one. Can you guess which line it was? Of course you can...

Enough of this wilfully obscure nonsense - it's my birthday this week and those loveable funsters The Upper Cut are playing at The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Friday so why not come along and see if I can still play guitar after that frankly unwise amount of lager. And if that wasn't enough Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks are playing at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale on Thursday (my 'actual' birthday) and The Swan in Iver on Saturday - see you at the bar!

Quo vadis?

I'd made enough of a recovery from the dreaded food poisoning by Tuesday to journey to Guildford to see The Stranglers supported by Nine Below Zero at G-Live. Nine Below Zero sounded pretty much how they sounded when I saw them in Watford before Christmas i.e. excellent if a little slower than I remember them sounding back in the day. Dennis Greaves still plays the cheeky chappie persona well, and remains an underrated singer and guitarist. I don't think I can recall seeing him play a Telecaster before although it sounded good to me, and I was close enough to the stage to hear him telling the band off a couple of times when they made mistakes - clearly not a cheeky chappie all the time then! Meanwhile The Stranglers were celebrating their 40th year as a band with a two hour long set that (I'm told) included at least one song from each of their 17 albums and which featured a three song-long mid-set appearance from veteran drummer Jet Black, which I believe is a rare occurrence these days. The audience seemed somewhat subdued until he began 'Golden Brown'; after 'Always The Sun' and 'Genetix' he left the stage to tumultuous applause after which the audience then seemed to me at least to return to their subdued selves. Strange - mind you I don't think I was the only person there that found the four screens suspended above the band to be something of a distraction during some songs. Still by the time we got to 'Five Minutes' and 'Hanging Around' things were getting a bit more lively, and the final encore of 'Tank' bought the proverbial house down. A good evening.

Friday Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks returned to The Crown in Cowley for the first time since Christmas Eve. That was a suitably noisy evening, this was rather quieter both in terms of audience numbers and band volume. We'd heard that there had been a few complaints from neighbours so both Pete and myself decided to take smaller amplifiers in an attempt to keep the noise down, and it certainly seemed to work as there were no complaints this time. Well, not to our faces anyway! When you play quieter than usual it can sometimes lead to a scrappy performance due to people not being able to play 'properly', and while there was the odd wrong turning here and there overall it was a good gig. We could have done with a few more people there though - I'm told that when the band played without me the next night several hundred yards down the road at The Three Steps it was an altogether more raucous affair. I was at The Brunswick in Hove playing a Teenage Cancer Trust benefit show with Back To Zero. We arrived just in time to miss Robby Allen And the Kite Collectors - a shame since I really enjoyed them when we played with them in Stoke back in February although I did manage to by their (excellent) album 'Mildred's Room'; I did manage to catch most of The Hiwatts's set of mod and mod-related covers before going off in search of food. The Legendary Groovymen, The Loop, The SuperMinx70 and The Past Tense all delivered strong sets, but sadly by the time we went on things were running a bit late and we were obliged to not only cut our set down but also finish before we were due to play 'Your Side Of Heaven', a situation which left some audience members somewhat disgruntled. I must admit it was all a bit frustrating in the end from our point of view, but hopefully they managed to raise some money for a very worthwhile cause. 

On Sunday afternoon I accompanied Big Al Reed in his 1959 Cadillac (!) to The Sportsman in Croxley Green for a jam session that featured among others High Voltage, some Swedish friends of Good Old Boys guitarist Pete Parks - I believe he goes out there and plays several times a year and organises shows over here for them in return. When we arrived High Voltage were roaring through an AC/DC song or two, and sounding very good indeed; later Al and I joined Pete on guitar, Bill on bass and the drummer from High Voltage (I can't remember his name! Sorry!) to play 'Peter Gunn' and 'Why Why Me', and jolly good fun it was too. 

If you're my age you've got to like Status Quo, or at the very least have a soft spot for them. Well I think that you have - I can remember seeing them on 'Top Of The Pops' when I was a lad playing songs like 'Caroline' and 'Down Down' and thinking that this rock 'n' roll lark looked like a pretty good thing to be involved in. Even my mum and dad liked them. With this in mind a chance to see the original line-up (the so-called 'Frantic Four') at The Hammersmith Odeon (or whatever the hell it's called these days!) seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, not least because the mighty Wilko Johnson was supporting. He sounded as great as ever - actually he sounded even greater than ever, with his 45 minute set going down so well that he could perhaps have played an encore. Everyone seems to love Wilko these days - as we all know his profile has been higher than ever since he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and let's hope he continues to play for a very long time yet. And what can I say about Status Quo that hasn't already been said? Terms like 'industry standard' don't cover it - they sounded, well, exactly like Status Quo should sound, with Rick Parfitt's rhythm playing remaining one of the touchstones of British rock'n'roll guitar and the band reminding everyone present why they liked them in the first place. There could have been a few more hits (I believe the set was based around the 'Live!' album) but I think the current line-up plays them so I guess this was a night for diehards and old fans rather than followers of the chart material. But however you look at it they sounded great - and I imagine that they always did. There are some things in life that you can rely upon, and I'd say that Status Quo are one of them. And that's alright don't you think?

'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...