Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Love Sculpture

As the Stranglers / Ruts DC tour grows ever nearer I seem to be spending rather a lot of my time changing strings, checking leads, working out how many stage clothes I need (where the hell am I going to keep my hats?!?) and of course making sure that I've got enough t-shirts, underpants and socks for our jaunt. It's all glamour this rock 'n' roll lark I can tell you... meanwhile the always - well - worth - reading Aural Sculptors blog has just published an interview with, of all people, me. Hilarious - I never for one minute thought that anyone would ever want to interview me. Me! You can find out what I think about, ooh, all sorts of things - it's even got a picture of me with hairMe me me it's all about me! You can have a read of it here if you like, and there are also some downloadable live recordings of a Price gig from way back in the 1980s and a show T.V. Smith and myself played at The 12 Bar Club in 2012 (get them here and here - go on, you know you want to!) for your (ahem!) listening pleasure. Great stuff - thanks Adrian!

Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played three shows last weekend, at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale, The Dashwood Arms near High Wycombe and The Riverside Club in Staines. The latter was notable for the fact that Al all but lost his voice in the first set which involved some fairly drastic rethinking of the set list although it all went well in the end. It was also notable for featuring the great John Sorrell AKA Johnny Squirrel on bass guitar as Dave was gigging elsewhere - it's always great to see Squirrel, and his playing was effortlessly excellent as ever. 

This week The Upper Cut return to Ye Olde George in Colnbrook on Sunday, which in hindsight I perhaps should have turned down as it's getting very close to tour - time. Ah well, I'm sure it'll all be ok - after all, you can only spend so much time counting t-shirts, underpants and socks...

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

'I wanted to look like one of The Flamin' Groovies...'

The new Ruts DC single 'Kill The Pain' comes out on Westworld Records on March 3rd just in time for our tour with The Stranglers - it's from our album 'Music Must Destroy' and features Jake Burns and Kirk Brandon on backing vocals. You can see the Graham Trott - directed promo video on YouTube by clicking here - excellent!

In the meantime I am once again currently in the grip of the dreaded ManFlu. Bah! I seem to have had it rather a lot lately, or it certainly feels as though I have - maybe I've not got rid of it properly, if you know what I mean. It's certainly getting a bit boring... since last we spoke I've cheered up a (little) bit - there have been gigs with The Upper Cut in Reading and with Big Al and the boys in St Albans, Burnham and Colnbrook, all of which passed without too much incident; I'm out and about with Al and co. this weekend although if I feel like I do now I fear that I won't be going anywhere. Time for some paracetamol and an early night - give me something to kill the pain, as someone once sang...