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This is my 400th blog posting!

As befits something as self-indulgent (and indeed self-obsessive) as the unprompted writing of a seemingly limitless series of missives about yourself (ME ME ME IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!) I thought this would be a good moment to include this page from 'Vive La Rock!', the first issue of which also includes articles on the likes of The Ruts, Motorhead and The Ramones among others, as well as this rather splendid revue of T.V. Smith at The Load of Hay. It's all good stuff, but given this excerpt it's fairly obvious that I would say that...

Let's set the controls for number 500 shall we?

And if you're anywhere near Windsor Street in Uxbridge this Saturday 30th October then why not set your controls for a visit to the Balcony Shirts shop, which opened exactly one year ago - there might well be a bargain or two to be had, and there's a fair chance of some live music from various members of staff. Acoustic guitar in a t-shirt shop? Anything's possible...

More sad news - Ari Up from The Slits has died. I well remember the outrage that they caused, four (un)typical girls daring to call themselves musicians in the face of the 'they-can-hardly-play' / 'they're-awful-even-for-women' opposition from the grown up's who preferred to listen to 'real' music. I saw about half their set at The Lyceum in late 1978 when they were supporting The Clash, when their defiant, dub-powered mischief-making was both embraced and rejected in more-or-less equal measures by the Clash-hungry hoards - when I said to my school friends that I'd seen them and they were nowhere near as bad as most of them thought that they were most of them were horrified. I just decided that they'd grown up already... I bet they didn't like Norman Wisdom either, but I remember laughing at his onscreen antics when I was a lad. Another mischief maker, and he's gone now too. Shame.

And it was a shame that there weren't more people in The Directors Arms in Borehamwood on Saturday when The Upper Cut gave an energetic show to a handful of diehards including 2 lads who alternated between dancing wildly (and occasionally just a little bit too close to the band) and playing pinball (yes, one of them did ask for the song!) while most of the audience sat at the bar listening. It can be somewhat soul-destroying to play to an almost empty room, but I thought we didn't let it get us down and as a result played a lot better than we might have under the circumstances. Paul the guv'nor was philosophical, saying that he was trying live music and would 'see how it goes from now until Christmas' as well as promising us a return date if he continues booking bands - he used to run The Heath Tavern in Hillingdon back in the dim and distant past (Terry, Roger and myself played there a few times when we were in The Informers back in the 1990's 'though he wasn't running it then) and seemed like a nice chap so let's hope it works out for him.

And it was shame that there weren't a few more people at The Load of Hay last night, where Zarbo's spirited performance went down well with the dozen or so people watching. They're a difficult act to categorise (never a bad thing methinks - check the 'movies' section of their website to see what I mean) but Andy and Paul play everything live (i.e. no backing tracks) and produce an implausible amount of sound for 2 people. It's all original material too, (apart from a version of 'Personal Jesus' and the closing number 'Old Man River') which is a good thing to see. Talking to them afterwards they seem quite self-critical about their act - neither feels as though they've really 'got going' yet - so it'll be interesting to see where they take it from here.

The Upper Cut will be taking it to The Dolphin in Uxbridge this coming Friday evening - that should ensure a bleary shop Saturday for your humble narrator - and I found out today that Dave Sharp is playing in the ''80's Rocked' show that I mentioned in the last posting and that I'd have been playing in if I'd been able to learn the songs in time. I'd love to - no make that love to - have been playing alongside him. If you can make it along to our gig it'd be good to see you - I could do with something to cheer me up...

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...