Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The calm after the storm? The calm before the next storm?

Well there we are then - a few weeks of intense activity (by my standards anyway!) and suddenly I'm back in the real World. Ooo! Still it's been good to have a week-and-a-bit to get things in order (I didn't half have a lot of clothes to wash!) and working at Balcony Shirts before the next batch of gigs begin. 

The long-awaited (by me at any rate!) book 'Love In Vain - The Story Of The Ruts and Ruts D.C.' by Roland Link is due out next month - we'll be playing The Islington in (you've guessed it!) Islington as part of the PledgeMusic funding campaign on Saturday 9th May which should be a night to remember. We're also about to release a 7'' single featuring a re-recording of the Ruts classic 'Jah War' which even though I say so myself has turned out really well. (I know you wouldn't expect to say that it's terrible but you know what I mean I think!) And myself and Segs are getting together tomorrow to go through yet more ideas for new songs - exciting stuff!

Although I wasn't out gigging myself last weekend I did manage to see a couple of shows, starting on Friday night with The Secret Police at Tropic At Ruislip. The Police were never exactly the coolest of bands to like, to the extent that they almost fit into the 'guilty pleasure' category for many. For what my opinion is worth I think they made some great records and having seen them play a couple of times back in the day can say that they were absolutely brilliant live. Much of their material is notoriously difficult to play, and I thought that The Secret Police made a very good job of things despite backing tracks malfunctioning as early as the first song. It looked as though they were running them from a somewhat temperamental iPad, and if this proves nothing else then the old adage 'always carry a spare' comes to mind... still once they got going it sounded excellent, and I for one had forgotten just how great songs like 'Bring On the Night' are. 
The next night it was off to Sub89 in Reading to see Adam Ant. A packed house witnessed an energetic performance from The Ant Man and his band (with Tom sounding splendid on low-slung Les Paul) who performed the 'Dirk Wears White Sox' album to the approval of all concerned. The show then continued with a selection of B-sides and early less-than-well-known material - you could all but hear the collective sigh of relief from the audience as 'Kings Of The Wild Frontier' began the encore, and 'Antmusic' caused predicable hysteria before a medley of 'Get It On' and 'You're So Physical' bought a highly enjoyable evening to an end.

This coming weekend there's a London Sewage Company recording session and The Upper Cut play their first gig since January, at The Halfway House in Barnes. We've not played their before so it'll hopefully be a good night. Before that I'm intending to see The Cockney Rejects at The 100 Club on Friday - well, I haven't been there for a couple of weeks...

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