New Year's Resolution revisited

Nothing ever really changes does it?

2015 began with your humble narrator watching Martin Turner in Ruislip, playing a Sunday afternoon gig in Colnbrook with The Upper Cut and spending rather a lot of time at The Resolution Festival at The 100 Club. 

2016 began with your humble narrator watching Martin Turner in Ruislip, playing a Sunday afternoon gig in Colnbrook with The Upper Cut and spending rather a lot of time at The Resolution Festival at The 100 Club.

As I say, nothing ever really changes does it?

I hadn't been to Tropic At Ruislip for a while; having now seen two shows there within a week of each other (I saw The Rollin' Stoned there last Friday in addition to the former Wishbone Ash man the previous Saturday) it's great to see so many people at what clearly is a thriving venue. I know that some people locally criticise the booking policy - mostly tribute acts with the 'first Friday of the month' show featuring an artist or band performing original material - but if it attracts the sort of audience numbers that these shows did it surely can't be a bad thing. And both the shows were excellent, with Martin Turner and his band sounding every bit as classy as they did last year and The Rollin' Stoned playing a great set of songs from every era of the Stones's long career to a sold out crowd.

My first gig of the year as a musician as opposed to as a spectator was with The Upper Cut at The Queen's Arms in Colnbrook. I'd not played at this pub before although the band played a short notice gig there with Pete depping on guitar last month; it being the first Sunday of the New Year it wasn't as busy as it might have been but there were still more than enough people there to make it work. That said although it was by no means a bad show the band wasn't as tight as it can be so it might well be time for a rehearsal or two before our next gig.

The Resolution Festival opened at The 100 Club last Monday with spirited sets from The Ramonas and The Duel - booked by The Crucial Talent Agency and featuring artists and bands from right across the punk rock spectrum highlights have been many and varied, although I have to say that last night's U.K. Subs show and The Members gig on Tuesday night stood out for me. I joined T.V. Smith and Vom for a few songs during their excellent performance supporting the afore-mentioned Members, and Segs joined us for the set closer 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' - with Gaye Advert in the audience he confessed to being nervous before the show, but it all went brilliantly well as this short clip shows. All in all a great event which will hopefully take place again next year.

And tomorrow Segs and myself will be in the studio at Jamm in Brixton reviewing and working on last month's Ruts D.C. recordings. 2016 then...

'Everything seems to be ready - are you ready?'

So here we are two weeks into January, and there have been no gigs yet this year for your humble narrator - not good frankly! Then again I did play 18 shows last month so I'm not going to complain too much... and it's been good to be out watching rather than playing (well, that's what I'm telling myself anyway!) as well as catching up on things at home and with people that I've not seen for a while. And anyway the gigs start again for me this weekend when The Upper Cut play The Dolphin (again!) in Uxbridge on Saturday night followed by a 5pm show the next day in Colnbrook at Ye Olde George Inn, so as I say it's not all bad news.

Monday night I made another visit to The Three Wishes in Edgware for the weekly jam night. There have been a few odd moments there for me lately (can people really be jealous of little old me? Surely not?) but it was odd for a different reason this week, when a not-been-there-for-a-while Big Al decided to try 'Dumas Walker' with the house band augmented by myself and Pete from The Blistering Buicks on guitars. We play it with The Buicks and it usually goes down well; however it's not an easy song to jam if the whole band don't know it but he wanted to try it anyway... three-and-a-bit minutes later and it was all too obvious that it wasn't an easy song to play if the whole band don't know it! Still we redeemed ourselves with 'Blues About You Baby' so it wasn't too bad in the end. And, as I keep saying here, I really must write a blog piece on jam nights one day... 

I actually started writing it (at last!) on Thursday during my tube train journeys to and from London where I was meeting up with Dave and Segs from Ruts D.C. for a few hours to talk about what we're hoping to achieve in 2014. Plans were planned, discussions were discussed and, yes, drinks were drunk... our first shows of the year are in Germany in February, and with this in mind we're having our first rehearsal since December's Damned dates next week - it'll be great to get back to it again. And I must read what I wrote on the train - the words written the way home could well prove to be a little, shall we say, spikier than the words written on the way there!

Friday night it was back to Tropic At Ruislip, this time to see The Rollin' Stoned. With the gig sold out the place was packed - and I mean packed - as promoter Philip introduced the band - except he didn't introduce the band, he introduced Chris Eborn. He has one of the biggest collection of Rolling Stones memorabilia in the World, and co-wrote 'Not Fade Away : The Rolling Stones Collection' with Geoffrey Giuliano which features much (though by no means not all) of his collection. I first met him in the early 1990s, he's a great character who's had more than his fair share of difficulties over the last few years so it was great to see him introducing the band and indeed to catch up with him after the show. The band took a while to get going - monitor problems plagued their set - but by the end the place was, as they say rocking. And why not? You sometimes forget how many great songs The Stones have written don't you?

Anyway must go - I've got a jam night to get to...