Humble pie

Well well well - 2 high ranking police officers resign, the scary woman with the red hair is arrested then appears alongside the senior and junior Murdochs in front of a commons select committee, the 'whistleblower' is found dead - can all this really be happening? As previously mentioned here I doubt that this will bring the whole Murdoch empire down but these are certainly extraordinary times. I watched a bit of the hearing - it seems that nobody knows anything about anything. I had a feeling that might be the case. And as for the 'comedian' that couldn't even manage to put a custard pie in the right place - you would have thought a clown could have managed that? Anyway well done Johnnie Marbles, you've just given all the right wing toadies in the media a chance to write pages and pages of sympathy along the lines of 'brave and humble 80 year old is protected by his loyal wife in the face of a senseless guerrilla attack by previously unknown and unfunny alleged comedian'. I bet they're writing that while I'm writing this. But here's a thought - these days it's practically impossible to take a tin of shaving foam onto an aircraft, so how on Earth did he manage to get some into somewhere with a name like Portcullis House?

Meanwhile back in the real world it was sad to hear of the death of former Motorhead guitarist Wurzel earlier this month. I spoke to him briefly at the Paul Fox benefit gig back in July 2007 (can that really be 4 years ago?!?) and he seemed to be a really nice chap - and anybody who played on a track as great as 'Killed By Death' is alright as far as I'm concerned.

It was a cracking evening on Friday when The Flying Squad supported The Small Fakers at the Tropic At Ruislip. For reasons best known only to the little pixies that live in the madder parts of my mind I decided to wear a suit, t-shirt and hat for the gig; the same little pixies also told me that it was a good idea not to take the hat or suit jacket off during the show (don't worry, I'd have kept my t-shirt on - the little pixies aren't that mad!) meaning that I was the hottest on stage that I can remember being for some time. With Phil the usual soundman (presumably) busy elsewhere Mick the surrogate soundman insisted on my guitar being quieter on stage than usual (I learned a long time ago that the last thing you do at a gig is get in the soundman's bad books so I didn't argue the point; with hindsight I think I should have asked to play louder as I was only on 2 out of 10, and valve amps sound better when they're turned up, honest!) but I guess there's no point in worrying about that now is there? It wasn't easy for me to hear what I was playing which could have accounted for some of the more, shall we say, experimental moments of my performance (along with the sweat in my eyes) but again there's no point in worrying about that now. Overall we played better than at last month's show with Andy on particularly good form up front, and we went down well enough to get an encore, which is always a moment for a support band to savour. And The Small Fakers were terrific, playing some very - make that very - obscure material next to the expected hits and classics, while their set finisher 'Tin Soldier' (surely one of the greatest pop songs of all time) had grown men fighting back tears such was it's excellence. The Small Faces were a fabulous band, and the Fakers made the job of playing their music look easy. Great stuff, and it was wonderful to see so many people at the gig, a testament to the Tropic team's dedication to live music.

The Rikardo Brothers played at The Load Of Hay last night, a little loose here and there (Pete couldn't make Tuesday's rehearsal) but still sounding good to me. We sounded good to the people I spoke to afterwards too - it's interesting to play songs more usually heard performed by much bigger bands with a relatively simple vocals-and-two-guitars line-up. Some songs inevitably work better than others, and it's definitely a case of 'less is more' on most occasions. We're starting to get offered a few gigs here and there, and all three of us enjoy playing together so there will hopefully be quite a bit more to come from The Rikardo Brothers in the future - even if I'm still not sure about the name...

I'm playing again at The Load Of Hay this Sunday evening with The Upper Cut. It's my 50th birthday. Now there's a sentence that I'd never thought that I'd write... if you're in the area then please drop in - it should be fun. Well, I intend to have a good time anyway!

Autumn leaves

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from a chap called Mark Moody who'd picked up my card 'ages ago from somewhere' and who was enquiring about the possibility of me giving his son Joe some guitar lessons. We got talking and fairly soon it was obvious by the number of 'I'm sure I know you' moments that we had quite a lot in common, not least when he mentioned that he had a Bartram guitar that he'd purchased from Thames Valley Guitars back in the 1980's. This was one of the Uxbridge musical equipment shops that my fellow Blue Five member Pete a.k.a. Voltarol used to run back in those dim and distant days (he also ran Pete's Gig Shop among others) when his many and varied musical endeavours included promoting jazz gigs at, of all places, The Load Of Hay. When Mark and Joe turned up the other night for a 'let's see if I can help you' meeting (it turned out that Mark had seen me playing in The Others which was the band I had before The Price! Oo-er!) they bought with them the afore-mentioned guitar (and a very fine instrument it is too) and the poster that you can now see on the above left, which had languished in the guitar case since way back when. I sent it by e-mail to Voltarol who reacted with great enthusiasm, and you can see his thoughts and memories here, along with some tremendous photos from the time. I went to most if not all of the shows (I definitely remember the bloke with the concertina!) as it was a chance to hear music that was somewhat outside of the mainstream at the time, which in my World is always a good thing; with that in mind I've included this Autumn's 'Acts Less Ordinary' schedule at said venue on the above right hand side - there's some great stuff coming up, and since the excellent David Bristow played to an audience of less than a dozen on the Sunday just gone if you can make it along to any of the shows it would be good to see you there.

If nothing else this shows that in addition to being two halves of one of the World's least likely guitar duos both Pete and myself are bonkers enough to think that promoting minority interest music in a back street pub is somehow a good idea - which reminds me, I'm playing with The Ali Mac Band at Tropic At Ruislip this coming Sunday evening - it's the first Sunday night gig there for a while, and co-incidentally there's nothing on at The Load Of Hay that night...

Blue Five alive!

A great gig last night - the first one this century! - for The Blue Five. Pete a.k.a. Voltarol arrived in Uxbridge around 2 o'clock - I found him sitting outside The Three Tuns on the High Street enjoying a pint of bitter in the sunshine. After a quick walk around town to show Pete how much it has changed since he was last there (in case you're interested Pete's Gig Shop began life in The Arcade before moving out onto the High Street to where Prontoprint is now situated; Thames Valley Guitars was in Belmont Road where The Belmont Medical Centre can now be found) we went home for some (fairly) serious rehearsal. Somehow we managed to put an hour or so or music together including several pieces that we'd never attempted before - the long suffering Shirley provided pasta before dropping us off at (somewhat inevitably!) The Load of Hay, the site of our first ever performance together over 20 years ago. There were a few mad moments but overall it was thoroughly enjoyably although looking up just before a solo to see the guitar hero that is Steve Simpson watching intently (he and Pete are old friends) did nothing for my nerves...

Time for The Chicago Blues Brothers to begin our week in Windsor then - excellent!