'We're opening a branch of cycling shops in The Channel Islands...'

No gigs this coming weekend for your humble narrator, a situation that would usually have me moaning and groaning (imagine that!) but since I've been lucky enough to be part of some great shows lately I'll use this posting to cover some other subjects that have been rattling around in my warped mind lately.

It's been all go at Balcony Shirts, and with good reason as the new website has finally been launched. It's been a long time coming but the hard work has definitely been worth it as you can see if you click here; there have been new shirts designs appearing alongside things like vinyl coasters and condiment crayons (I'm not making this up, honest!) and to this end your humble narrator has been busy writing website copy for the newer items and beyond. And that's not all - Scott has penned another Q.P.R.-centric song, this time in honour of recent signing Ji-Sung Park. It's on YouTube even as we speak - that's me on the multi-tracked guitar solos!

Ruts guitarist Paul Fox died five years ago this month. Five years! Where does the time go?!? The annual tribute gig is being held at Ruislip Social Club (home of course to the excellent Tropic At Ruislip club) on Saturday 27th October. There is also a benefit CD (the event is always in aid of The Michael Sobell Hospice) featuring various artists, many of which had a direct connection to Paul. To this end The Price have contributed 'So What About Love?' which was one side of a single (the other side was 'Between The Lies' in case you were wondering) that Paul produced for us way back in 1989. Full details on both the CD and the show can be found at www.foxyswebsite.com, and it promises to be a very special evening - I might even go along myself... and talking of Paul's old band these three clips from last weekend's Ruts D.C Birmingham show have surfaced on YouTube, and we're playing Fibbers in York this coming Saturday which I'm really looking forward to.

50 years ago The Beatles released their first single 'Love Me Do' on the same day that the first James Bond film 'Dr. No' premiered in London. The twin worlds of popular music and film would never be quite the same again. Listening to 'Love Me Do' now it sounds basic, simplistic even - were this band really going to release 'Revolver' less than four years later? Yes, incredibly, they were. And then there's Mr. Bond - the hard drinking, womanising one-man army saving the World from the bad guys while delivering punchlines that most stand up comedians would be proud of. And didn't people used to smoke a lot in those days?
I don't remember either events happening (it was not long after my first birthday) but I do remember both Bond and The Beatles being for want of a better word 'omnipresent' during my early schooldays and beyond. And incredibly they still are - there's a new Bond film 'Skyfall' on the horizon, and the ever-controversial 'Magical Mystery Tour' has finally been officially released on DVD. It seems we still can't get enough of the Fab Four and whoever-it-is-that-plays-Bond-these-days - and I for one doubt that we ever will.

And what better to way to end this posting than with something that I haven't done for a while - yes, it's the return of the caption competition. Here's a photo that I took while away in Guernsey back in August. That looks a bicycle in that tree doesn't it? That's because it is! If you can think of a caption for it then please leave it as a comment. There are no prizes (as usual!) but it might be a laugh...

Anarchy in the uke - eh?

As the Autumn nights draw in it's time for another song from Balcony Shirts - having shown us all how to bake bread and extolled the virtues of the then-recently promoted Queens Park Rangers our resident songwriting genius Scott has turned his attention to the humble ukulele. He's written a song to show you how to play it, and he's somehow got Iain Lee to appear in the video - it's on YouTube now, so click here to see all sorts of people strumming in the shop, Scott Dave and Chris trying their best to look bored while standing in a line pretending to play, and your humble narrator in an undersized lab coat showing you 3 chords. They're the only 3 that I know, so it's fortunate that they were the ones that the song needed. Perhaps they're the only ones that Scott knows too?!?

Incidentally we've just made some t-shirts for the afore-mentioned Mr. Lee, and they're currently available from his website. We're also producing some shirts for the upcoming Ruts D.C. gigs, but more about that next time.

The tracks of my tears

I've just had a message from Kris Dollimore to say that he won't be able to do tonight's gig at the Load of Hay due to family illness. Curses!! There was a lot of interest in his performance and I was really looking forward to it - oh well, it's more important that his family are well don't you think? We'll reschedule the date as soon as we can; in the meantime the next Sunday night show there features The Bullet Blues Band (guess what type of music they play?!?) on November 6th - they feature The Chicago Blues Brothers band's very own Johnny Squirrel on bass alongside the vocal and harmonica talents of the excellent Ed Stacey, and it should be a cracking evening.

Thursday night saw myself and Matt from The Chicago Blues Brothers appear at the Bacchus Bar in Bishop's Stortford as The Rock Show. We've talked about doing something like this (a duo with backing tracks) for a while so when the opportunity arose (thanks Mike!) it seemed like a good chance to try the idea out. We'd talked through some song ideas over the last few weeks; we then set about obtaining backing tracks and working separately on the material. Unfortunately we didn't get chance for a rehearsal (we tried to arrange something but time and circumstances conspired against us as so often happens) which was a shame as we got lost here and there, although in our defence your honour the onstage sound was a little unusual... actually the stage itself was pretty odd, being set back into the wall several feet up in the air. This resulted in the music being for want of a better word 'contained' in the alcove making it extremely loud and overpowering (well that's what it was like where we were, I've no idea what it was like out the front) which took a few numbers to come to terms with. Mind you I'm sure every other act that appears there has the same problem and they no doubt cope with it so I'll stop making excuses and just say that it's given us a few things to think about if we're going to take the duo idea further. From my point of view I'm going to have a think about guitar sound - I used a Pod plugged straight into the P.A. system which didn't sound too bad in itself but had to be played back though the monitor for me to hear what I was playing. All well and good - except that it's been ages since I played a show with that sort of set up and I found it difficult to get the balance between the guitar and the backing track right. This also made timing difficult (hence my comment above about getting 'lost here and there') as well as making it hard for me to hear my backing vocals (I'm not the best singer and I need all the help I can get!) In the future I think I'll use an amplifier - I'm just more used to hearing the guitar coming from behind me! - although I guess the use of the Pod is another thing that could be sorted out at a rehearsal. In the meantime we've got to find some higher quality backing tracks, I've got to get more confidant with the backing vocals (this could take some time!) and, let's face it, we've got to learn the songs better, as the sound balance wasn't the only reason we 'got lost here and there'. Nevertheless every journey starts with the first step, and The Rock Show have made theirs. Let's see where we find ourselves next.

Friday it was time for another Ruts D.C. rehearsal - myself, Segs and Seamus spent a few hours in the latter's kitchen (rock 'n' roll eh?!?) running through quite a few of the songs from last week's Brixton bash. Seamus sounded great and Segs and myself were so enthused that we had to go to the pub afterwards to, er, discuss tactics. Everything's moving in the right direction, interest in the shows is starting to increase - good news all round!

Following on from the (ahem) success of our bread and Q.P.R. songs the next Balcony Shirts song extolls the virtues of the ukulele - to this end yesterday morning your humble narrator found himself in a several-sizes-too-small lab coat playing the only 3 chords that he knows on a SpongeBob SquarePants ukulele (yes, you read that bit correctly!) for the benefit of Scott's video camera and to the bemusement of several customers. I'll let you know when the finished film is available for viewing - in the meantime I'd better stop blogging and start phoning people who might be coming along tonight... bah!

Time gentlemen please

Bad news - it wasn't 'a bit of a cold' it was manflu, that most terrible of illnesses. Many are the ladies that say that manflu doesn't exist, but they are of course sadly deluded - I didn't feel too bad on Monday but by Tuesday I was in it's evil clutches with a headache from hell, all sorts of nasty stuff pouring out of my nose and a voice that sounded like I'd been gargling with paint stripper. Not good frankly. After taking mountains of paracetamol and drinking gallons of water (I only exaggerate a couple of million times a day) throughout Tuesday and Wednesday I heroically dragged myself down to The Crown And Sceptre for the Good For Nothing performance by Scott from Balcony Shirts - as I stumbled around trying to plug my acoustic guitar into the P.A. system Scott asked me if I would like to play on the whole set rather than just the bread and Q.P.R. songs as we'd originally planned. I thought I'd said something like 'I would if I was feeling better, and anyway I don't know your songs' although I think I actually said something more like ' Argh were ef Iwa fellin bitter' then coughed for about 40 seconds; either way he played a couple of his own songs (and very good they were too) before beckoning me up to join him. The bread song went well before he introduced another of his own songs -pausing to say 'it's just C, F and G with a capo at the second fret' to your humble narrator he launched into a song that I'd not heard before. After listening to the first verse I started with a few tentative notes; by about halfway through I'd more or less got the hang of it and would have tried a few more bits than I did if my nose hadn't started running during the last verse. Then he started strumming with the words 'Chas And Dave' - I recognised 'Ain't No Pleasing You' but made a dreadful mess of the chord sequence. Bah! Still never mind, it's time for the Q.P.R. song, he's changed the key (actually come to think of it he changed the key to the bread song too!) but I can play this one and it ends to cheery applause. Excellent. Even though I'm feeling rough (did I mention that I had manflu?) it was good fun although it would have been good to have been familiar with the other songs. Still if I've learned anything from playing this music lark it's that once you've made a mistake then it's gone forever and there's not much point in worrying about it. Time for a drink then...

'Last orders at the bar'.

The manager (I think he's the manager, he seemed to be running the place) walked around to tell everybody personally. It was just after 10.30. We hadn't been that bad had we? Mind you there weren't many people in... looks like I'd attended the only two Good for Nothing club nights at the Crown And Sceptre. Shame. Oh well, it might be a good thing to go home early, after all I'm not feeling too well... as I was leaving Darren thanked me for playing then added 'Simon bootlegged it'. Bugger! What was that I was saying about mistakes being gone forever?

P.S. - I found out on Saturday morning that they will be carrying on with the club night on Wednesdays after all - good news!

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...

Band of brothers

And the madness continues - we've now had over 15 thousand YouTube hits, and have peaked (so far!) at number 20 in the iTunes country music charts. Amazing, not least because it means that your humble narrator can say that he's played on a top 20 single. Look, there we are above Shania Twain and Taylor Swift; in fact we're the filling in a Taylor Swift sandwich. Now there's a thought... there's going to be a piece about us in the local paper this week, and Thursday morning saw unashamed posing from the entire Balcony Shirts crew when a photographer from said journal came to the shop. His appearance coincided with a visit from Dave the John Hornby Skewes rep who found the whole thing highly amusing - maybe he doesn't visit too many shops who design custom clothing whilst participating in a photo session?

It was a splendid evening on Friday when Tropic At Ruislip hosted a double bill of The Pistols and The Clashed. It was a much punkier bill than the usual Tropic fare, and a successful one with the best part of 200 people attending. Although I've depped in The Pistols I'd never actually seen them play, and they do a fine job in recreating the filth and the fury of Johnny and the boys. Singer Paul distinguished himself by wearing a tweed suit (cue butter gags!) and Colin the guitarist wielded a Steve Jones signature model Les Paul to great effect. Tim and Toby gave the bass and drums their all and although I could personally have done without the 'Great Rock 'n' Swindle' material (they missed out 'Did You No Wrong' but they played 'No One Is Innocent' - bah!) the 'NMTB' material sounded as mighty as ever. The Clashed were enjoyable enough although they were somewhat hampered (visually at least) by having a Mick and Joe mix up i.e. the rhythm guitarist sang like Jones and the lead guitarist sang like Strummer. They also had a bass player who looked about 12 although I think he was a stand-in. Sound wise they were authentic enough to get more than a few audience members bellowing along, and I'm sure I wasn't the only person there who felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand up as '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' began. And let's face it, any band who does 'Straight To Hell' as an encore can't be all bad can they? I'd probably have enjoyed them more if I hadn't developed hiccups a few songs into their set, a situation which sadly continued for much of the evening and gave me spurious justification for drinking far too much lager; it didn't stop the hiccups and it cost me a fortune!

And it was a good gig last night too - the (ahem) debut 'proper' (as opposed to 'impromptu-get-together-at-a-charity-night') performance of The Rikardo Brothers at The Load of Hay. Following on from our rehearsal on Tuesday Alan (vocals) had put together 2 sets, both of which he largely ignored all evening putting myself and Pete (guitar) on the spot with a few 'do you fancy a go at this one?' moments. Then again nobody in the audience seemed too concerned and overall it was a good first show although we all agreed that in a weird sort of way it's easier to play a unrehearsed gig like we did last time than it is to present a 'serious' show. Maybe there's less pressure if it's all spontaneous? Well, there's a question that could be profitably pondered... maybe I'll ponder it further one day...

We got a hit!

So there we are then - we've had over 12,000 viewings of the Balcony Shirts song for Queens Park Rangers on YouTube and are in the top 30 country music downloads on iTunes as I type this, as well as getting a revue in no lesser publication than The Guardian! We'll be playing it live on the centre spot before for the first home game of next season at this rate!

Your humble narrator wasn't expecting to have any gigs over the weekend just gone, and so was readying himself for another episode of the all-too-sporadic 'Vinyl Rules!' column as I'd have time to transfer some more records over to digital format - however sometime on Wednesday I was asked by the long-suffering Shirley if I would like to contribute to a charity evening that she's involved in at The Battle Of Britain Club in Uxbridge on Friday. 'They're having a 'Britain's Got Talent' theme and Nick the organiser wondered if you'd like to do some solo guitar in the interval, maybe 10 minutes or so?'

What I should of course have said is something like 'I haven't really got time to get anything together at such short notice' - you and I both know I didn't say anything of the sort...

With Voltarol's radio show playing in the background (he played a 'Tommy' medley by Victor Biglione for me as well as mentioning this blog! Thanks Mr. V.!!) I re-strung my acoustic guitar and wondered just what I'd let myself in for. Solo acoustic guitar pieces are generally not very long - well the ones that I can play aren't anyway! - so I'd need five or so to manage the allotted time. Well there's the stuff that I played a Dave's funeral last week, and there's an Ike Isaacs piece called 'Just Funky' that I had a go at ages ago and might be able to remember, and I've been looking at 'Some Summer Day' by John Fahey, and there's that little idea of mine that I've been working on, and I've always fancied a go at 'Bron Yr Aur' by Jimmy Page... that should be enough shouldn't it?

As it turned out it was more than enough. I would estimate that 95% of my audience were young bank employees (Nick is a bank manager) unlikely to be interested in the likes of Isaacs and Fahey (I didn't bother playing either of their pieces - oh well, maybe next time?) even if they hadn't been queuing for their meals. Up until that point in proceedings they'd been entertained by 5 acts in 'Heathrow's Got Talent', although a better description of things might be 'watched some of their workmates make idiots of themselves and watch some others be surprisingly good at singing / dancing / comedy etc'. That said there were a few people listening, and a mention of Mr. Page got a beery cheer from the darkness to my left; I was just about to start said tune when a large gentleman came up to me repeating a car number plate several times in my general direction then demanding that I tell the driver to move it immediately. I referred him to the D.J.... I left the stage to what I thought was total indifference and thinking something along the lines of 'huh - I've been ignored by bigger and better audiences than this lot'; however quite a few people came over to say that they'd enjoyed it, and the long-suffering Shirley (who by now had been given the job of distributing the aforementioned food!) said that plenty of people had been listening. From my point of view I was relieved that I hadn't been as nervous as I'd been at Dave's funeral, and I played quite well although I feel there's still a long way for me to go before I (ahem!) launch my solo career - if indeed I ever do!

After the show Shirley and myself made the short journey to The Gardeners Arms to catch an hour or so of the Ace! club night, and very good it was too. Scott from Balcony Shirts basked in the glory of The Guardian piece, Shirley's brother Trevor introduced us to what felt like everyone in the place (he's a regular there, fairly obviously) and every record that was played was a classic. A good first night for Darren and Simon - let's hope there are many more to come.

In the meantime it's been very busy in the shop - maybe thanks to the song, maybe not? - and there is more acoustic guitar playing on the horizon this week. Following on from our impromptu performance last month I'm teaming up with Alan and Pete from The Good Old Boys for a performance at - you've guessed it! - The Load Of Hay next Sunday. Now officially christened The Rikardo Brothers (don't ask me, I only work here etc) we're rehearsing this evening- not entirely sure sure what material yet, but it should be fun...

Eric Clapton spelt my name wrong!

My brother has been working at Shepperton Studios, which as you may know was once owned by The Who and features several sound stages where successful (i.e. those that can afford it) bands rehearse for upcoming gigs and tours. Terry held the door open for a young up and coming Surrey guitarist from one such band the other day; he (maybe that should be He?) was kind enough to sign an old call sheet which Terry had handy. I'm going to the Royal Albert Hall next month to see said guitarist - I'm sure it'll be a good night, I believe he's played there quite a few times before...

Talking of good nights, this Friday sees an event that's well worth supporting, a club night at the somewhat unlikely venue of The Gardeners Arms in Uxbridge - as the poster says, ACE! promises '60's soul ska and beat which is more than enough to tempt your humble narrator through the door. I remember D.J.'s Simon and Darren when they were lads back in the '90's, they've just started the excellent What's On In Uxbridge website which means that at last there is somewhere for bands and venues to tell people that there's something happening locally. Let's hope both the club and the website are successful for them.

Meanwhile the latest Balcony Shirts song has been unleashed onto You Tube - Chris and Scott are both lifelong fans of Queens Park Rangers, and from early on this season decided that if Rangers were promoted to the Premier League they would write a song that included the name of every member of the current first team squad. They've done a fine job, as you can discover if you click here - I'm on lead guitar, which Scott invited me to contribute with the words 'play like Neil Young'. I'm not sure I managed it, although he has since compared my contribution to 'Motorcycle Emptiness' by The Manic Street Preachers. This is high praise in my world (I wouldn't have been telling you that he'd said it if it wasn't!) and I'm not sure that I managed that either, but see what you think. There are also some suitably euphoric t-shirts available that come with a free CD of the song, and the song itself is now available on iTunes. Pretty cool huh?
Chris went to the last game of the season where he met fellow season ticket holder Mick Jones; apparently they play 'London Calling' when he takes his seat at home games. Excellent! Hmm... I wonder if I can get them to play a Price single next time I'm at a Liverpool game?!?