Sunday, August 31, 2014

'Let me tell you how it will be, it's one for you nineteen for me...'

First things first - the always-excellent Aural Sculptors blog has posted a review of the forthcoming Ruts D.C. album 'Live On Stage', which you can read here. Thanks Adrian - that's another drink I owe you!

Anyway it's Sunday afternoon and as I sit here typing I can still detect the faint but unmistakable smell of soldering... I was minding my own business on Friday night during a Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks show at The Brushwood Inn in Hillingdon when my trusty Telecaster (well it had been trusty up until that point!) suddenly and very abruptly stopped working. Fortunately I had a spare guitar with me (a Stratocaster in case you were wondering) so I finished the show with that; today has been the first chance I've had to open it up and see if anything obviously wrong, and as I lifted the control panel up it was obvious that a couple of wires had become detached from the pick-up selector switch. I've re-soldered them and it's working again but it's making a rather worrying buzzing - maybe it's not earthed or something? A job for Stuart the guitar repairman methinks... 

Meanwhile in the midst of the past posting's death - fest (!) I omitted to mention that I'd been to a couple of gigs last week. 

On Thursday The Good Old Boys played at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale. I always find it interesting to see someone else play at a venue that I have played a few times (yes, I know, I should get out more, or make some friends, or something!) and this time was no exception - it being near to the Bank Holiday weekend there were less people about than perhaps there might have been, but the boys still put on a good show. Mind you, they normally do... Nick Simper greeted me with the words 'I thought of you the other day' (now there's something that I never thought that I'd hear a former member of Deep Purple say!) and went on to say that he'd recently guested with The Rapiers at a Johnny Kidd tribute event. He thought that they'd made a good job of things, and as these two clips show, he was correct!

The next night Simon and Hud from The GOBs joined bassist Bill in The Ali Mac Band at The Red Lion in Feltham. I'd not seen them play for what seems like ages, and they sounded good particularly vocally with some excellent harmonies from everybody in the band. I believe that The Red Lion has just started putting live music on, which has got to be a good sign in these days of venues disappearing left right and centre. Let's hope it's a successful venture. 

And for the second weekend running I saw Dave Ruffy depping in a band, this time with The Montecristos at The Islington in (you've guessed it!) Islington last night. With Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X at the helm they roared through a very enjoyable hour or so of rockabilly-charged rocking and rolling, with the young ladies on double bass, trumpet and saxophone drawing many-an admiring look from all concerned. And I hadn't been to The Islington before but will certainly look out for gigs there in the future, as it's an excellent little (with the emphasis on the word 'little'!) venue.

Right - a quiet-ish week this week, with just an Upper Cut private party show on Saturday. Time I got that bloody tax return finished then...

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