'...the sun's not yellow, it's chicken...'

After the euphoria of last weekend it's back down to Earth with a bump for your humble narrator this week with the news of three deaths:-

Roy Chuter was a man that I can't claim to have known well, but I have very good memories of the time that I did spend with him. Back in the late Eighties and early Nineties The Price were often featured in 'Wake Up!' fanzine, and Roy was a good friend of Dave T. the editor who I saw at gigs here and there and at Dave's legendary 'Womblestock' parties. Lately he'd been running The Duke Of Wellington pub in Shoreham where I played with both The Price and T.V. Smith in recent years. I heard of his passing from an email from Dave, and I had chance to talk to Attila The Stockbroker about him at The Rebellion Festival who told me the sad story of his demise. The depth of feeling for the man can be seen by even a cursory glance at the Brighton And Hove Albion F.C. North Stand forum - Roy is someone who will be missed by many many people.

The man I always knew simply as 'old Michael' died earlier this month - a familiar figure in and around the pubs of Uxbridge, his tales of the London jazz scene of the 1950s and '60s never failed to amuse and entertain. He came to see The Upper Cut not-so-long ago - when I next saw him he came up to me with the words 'too loud man!' Let's face it, he was probably correct... in recent years East saw more of him than I did, but he'd always have plenty to say whenever I did see him, and would often leave us both with the words 'I'll see you two reprobates later'. Again I won't pretend that he was a close friend but he was someone that I spent some good times with, and a night at The Load Of Hay will never be quite the same again.     

And talking of The Load Of Hay, it was in said establishment last Thursday evening that I heard that Chicken Legs Weaver had died last month. I saw Andy play there on several occasions (I also saw him at The 100 Club supporting Wilko Johnson, and he played with The Flying Squad at Tropic At Ruislip back in February 2010) and I'll remember him as a great character, a fine musician and a fiercely committed bluesman who played his music with a fire and a passion that many aspire to but only very few achieve. I'll also remember him (and indeed Roy and Michael) as being a very nice guy, which I think you'll agree is a pretty good way to remember anyone.

Having played a show with Utter Madness earlier this month it was with great interest that I made my way over to the afore-mentioned Tropic At Ruislip on Friday evening to see It Must Be Madness. They seem to be a popular bunch as over 200 people turned up for the show, and very good they were too with many an obscure album track among the expected hits. I missed much of their second set as I was on the phone to Dave Ruffy attempting to plan this weekend's Ruts D.C. appearance at The 3 Chords Festival in Penzance (we never close!) but they certainly had the crowd dancing by the end of the evening. And it was great to see the club so full of people - we could do with more venues like this couldn't we?

Saturday night it was over to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham to see Midnight. As I didn't have a gig myself I probably would have gone along anyway to give Big Al Reed (he plays saxophone in the band) a bit of support, but with the man himself Terry Peaker busy elsewhere the prospect of seeing my old mate Johnny Squirrel depping on bass was just too good to miss. He made a very good job of it too, often in the face of adversity given the shall-we-say 'eccentric' nature of some of the performances. He made a very good job of depping in The Blistering Buicks the next afternoon at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook too, where our three sets were lapped up by the faithful and the landlady offered us two more gigs in the next couple of months. Excellent!

Monday morning in Balcony Shirts began with the first person through the front door asking if he could use the toilet, then looking astonished when he was told that he couldn't. I heard myself say 'this is going to be a weird day' to new-ish recruit Simona, and much as I might be wrong about a lot of things I was proved right about this one, with the next person asking if they could have an envelope (that's 'have' not 'buy', and why they thought a t-shirt printing shop would be the place to go for such a thing is anybody's guess) followed by a chap asking if we sold tennis racquets. Some people even asked if we printed t-shirts... all in a day's work I guess, although things brightened up no end when a young lady told us that she ran The Blue Plague Printing School - 'it's an anti-Tory printing workshop, we'll be doing it again soon, you should come along' said she cheerily. You know, I just might! 
From there it was over to Soundlab Studios in Loughton for a Back To Zero rehearsal where an enjoyable and very productive session saw new songs tried alongside some cover versions to be played at a private party this coming weekend. A long day, but a good one - as I sit here thinking about the three gentleman featured earlier in this posting that feels like a great thing to be able to say. Well, I think that it is - don't you?

None more black

Is it just me or do the baby's eyes
follow you around the room?

Christmas is coming (I just thought I'd mention that in case you hadn't noticed) and what better way to usher in the festive season than to spend Thursday evening attending the opening night of an art exhibition. (Go with me on this, it does get better!) 'Black Xmas' is at The Signal Gallery until December 21st; it's curated by Gaye Black and as you can no doubt tell from the flyer it's a rather darker gathering than many at this time of year. I arrived just in time to get one of the last bottles of lager (thereby avoiding the somewhat scary-looking cocktails) from the bar and to bump into punk promotess Sarah Pink just as she was leaving. 'Lovely to see you dahling!' said she (as only she can) as she disappeared up the stairs and into the night. After saying a quick hello to Gaye (not an easy task, she's very popular!) I saw Ian from Damaged Goods Records who I last spoke to at The Rebellion Festival back in August. 'You remember this chap don't you?' said he, smiling broadly as Neil from Shelly's Children put his right hand out in my general direction. Yes, indeed I do, but I hadn't seen him for, oooh, nearly 20 years. He's not playing anymore - a shame since they were a great band who The Price played quite a few shows with back in the day. Still it was good to see him again.
Meanwhile The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing ('grammatically incorrect but historically accurate') took to the stage. They're a Steampunk band ('don't worry if you haven't heard of it, it isn't anything...') with a fine line in top hats and handlebar moustaches; if you've ever found yourself thinking along the lines of 'there should be more bands singing songs about Charles Darwin, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the 1832 General Election' then these boys could be just what you're looking for. Very noisy in places, very entertaining pretty much all the time and definitely worth keeping an eye out for, although I'm not really sure why.
As things drew to a close we did the decent thing and went to the pub next door. 'It's not cheap in here is it?' said a rather rueful Mark (a.k.a. Barnet, boss of The 12 Bar Club) as he returned from the bar. No, no it's not. Still the atmosphere is good, and when a chap called Tom comes over and joins our conversation we both agree that we know each other from somewhere... ah, of course, he used to be in Big Boy Tomato, another band that The Price used to play with all those years ago. It was that kind of evening...

In a vague attempt at continuity this seems like a good opportunity to mention that Gaye has designed the front cover of a tribute CD to Paul Fox which has just been released - 'See You On The Other Side' features 24 tracks, and all proceeds are going to The Michael Sobell Hospice where Paul received treatment towards the end of his life. You can find out all about it and indeed order a copy on Foxy's Website - it's well worth getting, both as a musical artifact and as a way of supporting a very worthy cause. And continuing the continuity (!) I'm playing at The 12 Bar Club next Friday 7th December with the mighty T.V. Smith, on an extraordinary bill that also features Texas Terri (she was at 'Black Xmas'  too) Louise Distras, Pascal Briggs, The Crows and probably some other people as well. It promises to be a fine if rather long evening, but I guess that's what the night buses are for. Excellent!

I'd thought about going up to The Half Moon in Putney on Friday night to see Slim Chance (incidentally the excellent Steve Simpson from said band is playing at The Load Of Hay in Uxbridge on Sunday 9th December) but instead found myself at The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham on witnessing a performance by Midnight. Big Al Reed played a mean saxophone and Terry from The Upper Cut did a good job depping on bass but to be honest it wasn't the best performance I'd ever seen from the band, although it went down well so perhaps it was me rather than them if you know what I mean. 
Things were far better on Saturday though, when The Upper Cut played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge at a party for Noel and Bridie's 25th anniversary as landlord and landlady. Geoff 'Rockschool' Nicholls depped on drums (Roger was away gigging with Lee Ryder) for the first time in a while and was as great as ever, and with the place absolutely packed it was a suitably raucous evening. Pete from The Cane Toads joined us for a few songs, Noel and Bridie were very pleased with our efforts and the party was still going strong when we left sometime after 1 am; I suspect there were more than a few sore heads on Sunday, a condition which for once I managed to avoid. Good! 
And Sunday evening saw the last open mic night of the year at The Swan in Iver. Confusion reigned over when proceedings had to finish - having been told that things had to end at 9 o'clock we were then told to 'play for as long as you like' by the landlady. Myself, Pete and Big Al (I'm really getting the hang of this continuity lark aren't I?) joined Tony on bass and Bob on drums to play four songs, the last of which was an ambitious-for-a-jam-night attempt at 'Born To Run' - I don't think we'll worry The E-Street Band too much but considering how difficult to song is we didn't do a bad job. Well, I don't think we did anyway.

Right- time to revise some T.V. Smith songs. I'm really looking forward to Friday night...

None for ages and then two come along at once

So - the News Of The World has been closed down by it's owner, who in doing so has once again shown a typically callous disregard for the men and women unfortunate enough to be in his employment. Presumably it's an attempt to avoid further scandal - rather ironic given the nature of said publication don't you think? - and to save his own (and no one else's) skin. However you look at it this is a sad state of affairs - each day a new revelation, a new victim, a new reason to never buy anything that Rupert Murdoch has anything to do with ever again. There's an old saying along the lines of 'you can't keep a good man down' - I fear it's even harder to keep a bad one down, which is why Mr. Murdoch will no doubt evade prosecution personally and re-emerge from the whole business completely spotless. Still, we can always hope that commonsense prevails and people stop supporting him and his empire. In the meantime here are a few words from Attila The Stockbroker (actually rather a lot of words, this is Attila after all!) on the subject - excellent!

Friday in Uxbridge saw The Good Old Boys playing at The General Elliot while Midnight were gigging across the road (literally!) at The Dolphin. This presented a situation that was too good not to take advantage of - your humble narrator (aided and abetted by Pete from Awaken, Roger from The Uppercut and the venerable East) journeyed back and forth between the two venues in an attempt to catch both bands, on a night perhaps best described as 'bass dep evening'. The Good Old Boys featured Bill on bass in place of Nick Simper while Midnight had Terry from The Uppercut on 4-string duties, and both bands sounded excellent to me, although how much of this had to do with the 'lets-have-a-quick-pint-here-and-then-go back-over-the-road' nature of the evening is difficult to ascertain. We finished up in The Dolphin where Simon and Darren of Ace! club fame were enjoying proceedings; Simon enjoyed it even more when I introduced him to Midnight keyboard player Chris Holmes who played in '60's cult heroes Timebox. Chris gave him a DVD of Timebox clips (I must get one of them myself!) as well as regaling us with tales of the likes of Mike Patto, Ollie Halsall and John Halsey. Great stuff.

Talking of depping I found myself in the wonderfully-named Preston Bagot (sounds like the name of a member of the House Of Lords that's just had his phone hacked doesn't it?) on Saturday evening for an Utter Madness gig. Tony's on vocals and Jon's on bass but aside from them it's deps all round - I'm on guitar (obviously!?!) while everyone else (Aaron on vocals and dancing, Dan on drums, Liz on saxophone and Dave on keyboards) are all from the ska covers band Big 10, and all of whom made a great job of what turned out to be a very enjoyable show. As Jon and myself pulled of junction 15 of the M40 Tony phoned to ask where we were; as I said 'just a few minutes away' the sat.nav. sent us off down the wrong road which we were unable to turn off for several miles.This was doubly unfortunate as we then were informed by Tony that we were supposed to be set up by 5.30 - we thought we had to arrive at 5.30 and were therefore late. Bugger! When we eventually arrived at The Crabmill we could set our gear up but were unable to soundcheck or rehearse anything as the guests were already arriving. It's a 50th birthday party for Andrew organised by his brother Steve - waitresses wearing t-shirts with the letters AFO and the words 'Alcohol Facilitation Operative' on them dispensed free drinks (always a dangerous thing with 2 1/2 hours to showtime!) and cheery smiles. Food on the other hand is thin on the ground for the band; eventually an AFO brings us several bags of very gratefully received crisps. Hot dogs appear not long before we're due on stage - when I look sad at the lack of a vegetarian option the crisp-bearing AFO brings me a spicy lentil sausage version. Excellent!

Andrew makes a short speech just before our set, explaining how an accident when he was 17 had left him confined to a wheelchair and how among the many things that it had affected in his life it made him realise that family and friends are more important than material processions and that it was 'great to see so many of you here tonight'. He handed over to us with the words 'Now let's get pissed!' - Tony was straight in with 'don't watch that...'

As we began 'One Step Beyond' I was suddenly aware that although I'd only done the show a few times that was a few times more than the majority of people on the stage. Situations like this can go either way - triumph and disaster are almost as likely as each other, and there's no telling which one you're heading for. This time it was the former rather than the latter, with everybody playing well and plenty of dancefloor action throughout. A chap repeatedly asked for 'Michael Caine' (sadly we didn't know it) but we managed 'Happy Birthday' at the start of our second set and judging by the comments we received in the interval and after the show it all went according to plan. A good gig all round.

And it was a good gig last night too, when The Load of Hay was host to Joseph Porter and Wob. I think I first met both gentlemen when The Price supported Blyth Power some 20-odd years ago - Joseph is the band's omnipresent songwriter and frontman and Wob was then playing guitar, a position that's held these days by Stephen Cooper who I met when I was gigging with T.V. Smith just before Christmas. It had been quite a hot sticky day which might have accounted for the low-ish (20 or so) audience turnout, but those who were there saw a fine show from both artists. They arrived just as I finished setting the P.A, system up which gave us plenty of time for soundchecking before Joseph asked the question 'do you know where I can buy some apples?' I directed him to a petrol station not far from the venue - he returned looking pleased with himself and with the words 'I can have these now so that I won't spend the gig burping into the microphone'. He's a brilliant songwriter although I don't recall having seen him play a solo show before - with some very funny and indeed thought provoking introductions the songs came over brilliantly in guitar-and-vocal format. Wob then gave a splendidly energetic performance which concluded with him walking around the audience singing 'Has Anybody Seen My Gal?' accompanying himself on a ukulele whilst attempting to cajole people into doing the Charleston. Strange but true. They then joined forces for a set of Joseph's songs to begin a highly enjoyable evening to a close. The only downside to the things were the 5 or 6 blokes at the bar who insisted on bellowing things like 'OOOH LOOK 'EE'S GOT 'IS BANJO AHT!' at every available opportunity. 'I see you've double booked the gig with a Mensa meeting' said East ruefully; I decided that they'd been drinking all day to mourn the loss of their favourite newspaper. Scandalous.

Local lad makes good?

And the madness continues to continue - here's the Uxbridge Gazette article on Balcony Shirts. We actually look like a band don't we? That's John in the middle of the back row, The Price played a few shows with his band Hector's House in our early days and very good they were too; he wrote the song with Chris and Scott with Dave and myself playing on the recording with them. We've now had over 16 thousand hits on YouTube - how on Earth do we follow this?!?

Staying local for the moment, Midnight played a fine show at The Dolphin on Friday evening, with the 5 man horn section sounding good and a fair sized crowd showing no little appreciation. I saw Ace Club D.J.'s Darren and Simon at the bar - Darren made the observation that The Dolphin was turning out to be a really good venue that he's 'never seen a bad band at'. It does seem to be going well there, which is good news for the area as it's another place for bands to play - which reminds me, it's time for another plug for the excellent What's On In Uxbridge website... there we are, that should do it...

Saturday it was time for my first gig in ages with The Briefcase Blues Brothers. Now this could get confusing so pay attention. Mario who used to be Jake in the Chicago Blues Brothers show runs The Briefcase Blues Brothers - he did before he was in our show, and he still does now. Matt who is currently Jake in our show used to be Elwood in Mario's band, and with regular man Chris unavailable is depping at this gig. So the B.B.B.'ers are one ex-C.B.B.'er and one current B.B.B.'er, except when Chris the real B.B.B.'er is available. Got that? Good. Perhaps you can explain it to me... on my way to the gig I got a call from Pete from The Rikardo Brothers telling me that our projected gig the next day at The Unicorn in Abbots Langley had been double booked and so we weren't playing. Bah! I was looking forward to that - oh well, they've apparently promised us a replacement date so we should play there sooner or later. In the meantime Adam's on drums, Kylan's on bass and (another) Matt is on keyboards for a gig in a tent in the garden of a very nice house near Swanley. It's Dylan's 40th birthday, he's a friend of Wayne who sometimes plays keyboards in the B.B.B.'s (I did say earlier that you had to pay attention!) and who is joining us for a few songs. When I got talking to him he said that his surname was Lee, which would make it easy for him to remember my name - I later found out that this is his dad - how cool is that? The show turned out to be a good one although it took me a few songs to get back into B.B.B. mode - they play some of the songs faster and some slower than we do, and in different keys and with different arrangements, all of which takes a bit of getting used to. For this reason I felt that the first set went ok but by the second set really took off with Wayne joining us for 'Shake A Tail Feather' and 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours' and a full dance floor throughout. A good evening's work.

And this posting finishes on a local note, with The Flying Squad returning to Tropic At Ruislip this coming Friday; we're supporting Treason who sound like a very - make that very - heavy rock band. It's our first gig with our perspective new drummer Andy who I last played with back in September 2009, at a wedding with me on bass guitar. That was a good gig, and as we sounded good at Ruff Rockers last night hopefully this one will be too - although Treason do look a bit scary... and The Upper Cut make their first visit to The Ivy Leaf Club in Uxbridge on Saturday (we're gigging there, not just going for a drink, honest!) making it two local gigs in a row for your humble narrator. There's something that doesn't happen too often...

Surprise surprise

I was correct with my 'no gigs this week' assumption until Wednesday morning when I got a text message from Upper Cut singer Terry asking if I was free on Friday as there was a chance of a gig for us. Heroically resisting sending back 'I'm not free but I'm cheap' (sorry!) I instead sent a 'yes-where's-the-gig?' reply and awaited further instructions. After a short period of time (presumably while Terry waited to hear from Terry the bass and Roger the drums, then got back to the agency who was booking the gig) I got the 'it's on' message along with the news that it was a return visit to After Office Hours in Barnet. This was a bit of a surprise since we only played there last month, and since it wasn't exactly our greatest ever performance (we were too loud and there wasn't much of an audience) I for one wondered if we'd get another show there - still with everyone available it was perhaps a chance to make amends for last time. Then, on Friday morning I got another text message from Terry to say that there had been a mistake and the gig was actually at Sweeney's in Ruislip. Well, at least we found out before we all went to the wrong venue...

Upon arriving at Sweeney's I remembered that the only other show that we'd played at the venue (also a short notice event) had not been particularly enjoyable - the audience didn't take much notice of us and there was a fight in the interval. This time the audience didn't take much notice of us (or so we thought at the time) and there was a fight after the show (nice variation on a theme don't you think?) Still it was good to see Stuart the guitar repairman and Pete from Awaken, both of whom left after the first set (we played 2 sets, the first from 10 - 11 p.m. and the second from 11.30 p.m. - 12.45 a.m.) saying that it was nowhere near as bad as we were thinking that it was. It turned out that they were probably correct as we were asked for contact details by 3 different groups of people who were interested in booking us for private parties so maybe we were all being a bit negative? But it felt like hard work, not least when a young man stumbled up onto the stage saying that he'd just split up with his girlfriend, and she'd turned up there tonight, and could we play 'that Bryan Adams song, you know the one, the one that goes ''der-der-der-der-der-dum'', it'll be the only thing that might win her back'... and some lads asked for Oasis, and some more wanted something by The Kings Of Leon, and there was another request for some Bob Dylan, and, and, and...

We didn't play any of them.

Still in a burst of 'let's-go-out-and-get-ourselves-some-gigs-at-places-that-we'd-like-to-play-at' enthusiasm myself and Terry the bass spent yesterday evening visiting 2 venues that had been recommended to us by friends in bands. First stop was The Sportsman in Croxley Green to catch the first set by Awaken - with Ken and Russ busy elsewhere Dave is depping on bass with the legend that is Mac Poole is on drums. There's a million things that could be said about Mac who was in Warhorse among many others - put his name into Google and be amazed! They sounded good and were going down very well when we left - I'd like to think that my guest spot on 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Play That Funky Music' (yeah, those 2 songs again; Pete very kindly bought a longer guitar strap along for me to use - I'll bring an even longer one along next time!) at the start of their second set contributed to the positive reaction although I think they were doing fine without me. From my point of view it was the only time I've ever faced an audience wearing a jumper (I forgot to take it off!) which didn't seem to hamper my playing too much - I might have to try it again!

From there it was off to The Kings Arms in Harefield to see the second set from Midnight, a West Drayton - based soul band who have been going in one form or another since the 1980s. They feature a 5 piece horn section (alto, tenor and baritone saxes with trumpet and trombone) and include Big Al Read on vocals and alto sax (not at the same time obviously!) Al's an old mate of Terry's who's got up and sang with The Upper Cut a couple of times; I don't think he wasn't in the band when I last saw them - mind you that was about 20 years ago! Their set was enthusiastically received by the assembled multitude, and rightly so as they sounded excellent. And I'm not just saying that because Al got us a gig there, honest!

I've got 2 gigs this week. At the moment.