It has been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled... well maybe not rock 'n' rolled exactly, but it's been a month since I last wrote anything here. That is quite a long time isn't it?
After the 'my computer's at the menders for ages' saga sometime near the end of last year I mused in these hallowed pages as to whether I might have, for want of a better term, lost the blogging habit. I'm beginning to think that I just might have done just that although I guess that the fact that this posting exists rather contradicts that thought. I've kept my Facebook page updated, but that's 'easier' to do isn't it? Maybe I don't have very much to say for myself at the moment? Perhaps I'm busier than I used to be? It's probably a bit of both... or maybe it's the post-tour crash that I didn't think was going to happen? On the surface at least I didn't think that it had effected me too much - I felt much more obviously upset by the catastrophic Upper Cut performance referred to in the last posting for example - but maybe I was just delaying the inevitable.
It's been very busy in Balcony Shirts, to such an extent that I've just worked 7 days in a row and am likely to be in there for a fair bit of this week too. There's nothing that puts 19 shows with The Stranglers into perspective quite like this sort of conversation :-
'So d'you print t-shirts in here then?'
'Yes, yes we do - we're a t-shirt printing shop.'
'So can you print me one then?'
'Well we can have a go. What would you like on it?'
'I dunno - what do you think?'
As you might well imagine at that moment I've got more than a few ideas as to what they should have written on their chest, but I've been known to say something like 'well I'd have a picture of The Who (or whoever - it literally makes no difference who...) from sometime in the 1960s (or whenever - it literally makes no difference when...) but I doubt that's the sort of thing you'd like'. After that anything can happen.
Ruts DC have played a couple of shows since last we spoke - our performance at The Grand in Clitheroe was thought by us to be below par although thankfully many were they who assured us that it wasn't (it's better that it's that way round don't you think?) while a boisterous gig at The Zikenstock Festival near Lille in France saw much stage diving (they like that sort of thing out there!) and general jollity all round. Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have been out and about too - highlights include a show at The White Swan in St. Albans which was curtailed after only 2 songs of the second set to allow those present to watch the Joshua / Klitschko boxing World title fight, while last weekend's 40th birthday party gig had your humble narrator musing to himself as to whether or not there might be some nice-looking young ladies present, then realising with some amusement that considering 40 years old to be 'young' meant that he / I am now officially 'old'. And it that all wasn't weird enough I saw Bob Dylan at The Bournemouth International Centre in (you've guessed it!) Bournemouth - his Bobness rarely if ever does what might be expected of him, and a set where he either played grand piano (often standing up) or wielded a straight mic stand in the slightly-disturbing manner of a not-very-good Rod Stewart tribute act without touching a guitar once wasn't necessarily what I for one would have predicted. Add to that the fact that the set mostly consisted of jazz standards (I believe he's just released an album of them) like 'Autumn Leaves' and 'That Old Black Magic' with the odd Bob classic thrown in here and there (often radically re-arranged - many didn't seem to recognise 'Tangled Up In Blue' until the title line, and I don't think many got 'Blowin' In The Wind' until it was all but over, if at all) and you had a show that more than a few audience members were none too happy with. Me? I loved it. Of course I did - he's a contrary old bugger, but all the better for it in my not-so-humble opinion.
I wouldn't mind ending up like that. Maybe I have ended up like that? Oh well - more whining self pity and non-crises again another time. Maybe even sometime soon...
Showing posts with label Bournemouth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bournemouth. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Back for good?
I've just been listening to the splendid new live album 'Triumph Over Adversity' by The Newtown Neurotics. Recorded at Brunel University in Uxbridge back in 1987, The Price supported along with a local band called In Session at a benefit night for Multiple Sclerosis research. Contrary to what the sleeve notes say Steve Lamacq didn't provide the recording of the show - I did. As a big fan of the band I gave the sound engineer a cassette and asked him to record their set - I then copied it for a few friends including Steve (who I don't remember actually being at the gig, despite what the sleeve notes say) who then inadvertently played it to Neurotics singer / songwriter Steve Drewett when he gave him a lift one day. The sleeve notes are correct on that point - although I don't think the bomb scare that occurred after our set was a terrorist threat; I recall it being an animal rights organisation who objected to the use of animal experimentation in MS research. Anyway after hearing it Steve D. asked me if I still had the master tape, which I did and subsequently passed on to him.
So - it's all my fault!
It really is a great show, every bit as exciting as I remember it being on the night, and although it's been available for official download for quite some time it's wonderful to see it receiving a 'proper' release at last. Highly recommended - even if the final encore of 'I Fought The Law' has gone missing! - and the band gave a fine performance at The Rebellion Festival earlier this month so they're still well worth seeing live if you get the chance.
It's often a bit weird to think back to earlier times. The past is a funny place isn't it? Musically I've always tried to leave it behind as much as possible - I rarely if ever listen to recordings by previous bands, and have never been one for over-analysing shows. They may have been good, they may have been bad, but they're done and you're only as good as your next show. Still between the above live album and last Friday's gig I've been travelling backwards and forwards in time a fair bit over the last few days, as on Friday evening I played a corporate show with The Amazing Blues Brothers at The Ocean View Hotel in Bournemouth. I worked a lot with Mike and Matt in The Chicago Blues Brothers, which all ended a few years ago amid no little chaos. I've stayed in touch with them and the other good guys in the band since it all ended, and it was a great pleasure to be asked to play with them again. With former CBB bassman Johnny Squirrel also on duty the band was completed by Josh on keyboards and Dion on drums - although everybody was set up and soundchecked by 2 pm we then had a 7 hour wait until stage time (I'd all but forgotten the 'hurry up and wait' aspect of many corporate shows) which might normally have been rather tedious, but with The Bournemouth Air Festival taking place the afternoon literally flew by.
Although I played any number of shows with the boys back in the day I hadn't played many of the songs since, and so had spent a fair bit of time earlier in the week revising the material. Most of it came back to me surprisingly easily, which was good news from my point of view as they were also playing a batch of songs that I was considerably less familiar with. Basically they lose the Blues Brothers suits and sing a set of what might best be described as 'party music', which includes a few songs that I'd not played at all before. We'd had a bit of time in the soundcheck to look at some of them, but it was all still a bit nerve racking from my point of view. And of course the other thing that I was reminded of is that these sorts of things are not 'gigs' as such i.e. nobody is there to see the band, but are actually there to eat, drink and be merry. All well and good you might think, but it does mean that your performance is often all but ignored by all and sundry. Matt and Mike were having none of that however, and soon had the dance floor full. I'd all but forgotten just how good the pair of them are both as individual singers and as Blues Brothers clones - as we finished our first set with 'Gimme Some Loving' the place was going crazy. This bode well for the second set - however although we only had a short break quite a few people had drifted away by the time we went back on, some to watch the fireworks taking place on the beach and some because they had, shall we say, peaked too early... still after a few songs the dance floor had filled up again and we were even asked to play for an extra 30 minutes. From my point of view I thought it was a good show although if I'm asked to play with them again I'll make sure I've changed the battery in my overdrive pedal - the bloody thing ran out halfway through the set. Bugger! I had a spare, but I really should have checked it first shouldn't I?
'Twas a very different show last night, when I was invited to play a couple of songs with Department S at The Lexington in King's Cross. Since I played with them in February Eddie the singer and Pete the bass player have put together a new line-up with Phil on guitar and Alex on drums, and having played a few low key shows last month this was to be their first London appearance. Thanks to the rigours of the London Underground I arrived just in time to miss the soundcheck, but did get chance to talk the songs through with the band - they had a new extended arrangement of 'Is Vic There?' but 'I Want' was the same as when I last played with them. From there it was time for a drink and a catch up before first band on Los Pepes opened the evening with an excellently raucous set. Next up were Duncan Reid and The Big Heads, whose blazing power pop performance bought the proverbial house down. A hard act to follow, but Dept. S weren't in the slightest bit intimidated - or if they were they certainly didn't show it. Kicking off with 'Clap Now' and 'Monte Carlo Or Bust' they were clearly in no mood for messing around - new songs mixed with old favourites and the audience loved every minute of it. By the time I fought my way across the packed dance floor to join them for their last two songs the place was going crazy, and my time on stage went by in a blur of pogoing and power chords. A fine evening all round, and the future looks good for the revamped Department S.
So there you have it - a bit of looking back, and a bit of looking forward. And why not?
So - it's all my fault!
It really is a great show, every bit as exciting as I remember it being on the night, and although it's been available for official download for quite some time it's wonderful to see it receiving a 'proper' release at last. Highly recommended - even if the final encore of 'I Fought The Law' has gone missing! - and the band gave a fine performance at The Rebellion Festival earlier this month so they're still well worth seeing live if you get the chance.
It's often a bit weird to think back to earlier times. The past is a funny place isn't it? Musically I've always tried to leave it behind as much as possible - I rarely if ever listen to recordings by previous bands, and have never been one for over-analysing shows. They may have been good, they may have been bad, but they're done and you're only as good as your next show. Still between the above live album and last Friday's gig I've been travelling backwards and forwards in time a fair bit over the last few days, as on Friday evening I played a corporate show with The Amazing Blues Brothers at The Ocean View Hotel in Bournemouth. I worked a lot with Mike and Matt in The Chicago Blues Brothers, which all ended a few years ago amid no little chaos. I've stayed in touch with them and the other good guys in the band since it all ended, and it was a great pleasure to be asked to play with them again. With former CBB bassman Johnny Squirrel also on duty the band was completed by Josh on keyboards and Dion on drums - although everybody was set up and soundchecked by 2 pm we then had a 7 hour wait until stage time (I'd all but forgotten the 'hurry up and wait' aspect of many corporate shows) which might normally have been rather tedious, but with The Bournemouth Air Festival taking place the afternoon literally flew by.
Although I played any number of shows with the boys back in the day I hadn't played many of the songs since, and so had spent a fair bit of time earlier in the week revising the material. Most of it came back to me surprisingly easily, which was good news from my point of view as they were also playing a batch of songs that I was considerably less familiar with. Basically they lose the Blues Brothers suits and sing a set of what might best be described as 'party music', which includes a few songs that I'd not played at all before. We'd had a bit of time in the soundcheck to look at some of them, but it was all still a bit nerve racking from my point of view. And of course the other thing that I was reminded of is that these sorts of things are not 'gigs' as such i.e. nobody is there to see the band, but are actually there to eat, drink and be merry. All well and good you might think, but it does mean that your performance is often all but ignored by all and sundry. Matt and Mike were having none of that however, and soon had the dance floor full. I'd all but forgotten just how good the pair of them are both as individual singers and as Blues Brothers clones - as we finished our first set with 'Gimme Some Loving' the place was going crazy. This bode well for the second set - however although we only had a short break quite a few people had drifted away by the time we went back on, some to watch the fireworks taking place on the beach and some because they had, shall we say, peaked too early... still after a few songs the dance floor had filled up again and we were even asked to play for an extra 30 minutes. From my point of view I thought it was a good show although if I'm asked to play with them again I'll make sure I've changed the battery in my overdrive pedal - the bloody thing ran out halfway through the set. Bugger! I had a spare, but I really should have checked it first shouldn't I?
'Twas a very different show last night, when I was invited to play a couple of songs with Department S at The Lexington in King's Cross. Since I played with them in February Eddie the singer and Pete the bass player have put together a new line-up with Phil on guitar and Alex on drums, and having played a few low key shows last month this was to be their first London appearance. Thanks to the rigours of the London Underground I arrived just in time to miss the soundcheck, but did get chance to talk the songs through with the band - they had a new extended arrangement of 'Is Vic There?' but 'I Want' was the same as when I last played with them. From there it was time for a drink and a catch up before first band on Los Pepes opened the evening with an excellently raucous set. Next up were Duncan Reid and The Big Heads, whose blazing power pop performance bought the proverbial house down. A hard act to follow, but Dept. S weren't in the slightest bit intimidated - or if they were they certainly didn't show it. Kicking off with 'Clap Now' and 'Monte Carlo Or Bust' they were clearly in no mood for messing around - new songs mixed with old favourites and the audience loved every minute of it. By the time I fought my way across the packed dance floor to join them for their last two songs the place was going crazy, and my time on stage went by in a blur of pogoing and power chords. A fine evening all round, and the future looks good for the revamped Department S.
So there you have it - a bit of looking back, and a bit of looking forward. And why not?
Friday, January 27, 2012
Ruts DC revisited
With no gigs this week (bah! Again!) I thought about doing a belated look back at 2011's high and lows but decided that (a) I'm still trying to forget that horrific Chicago Blues Brothers show at the end of November and screaming on about it here won't exactly help me drive it from my mind, and (b) Ruts D.C. have been confirmed as appearing at this year's Rebellion Festival in August, and that seems a much better thing to write about. So here's a look back at last year's Alabama 3 support shows with backstage passes, a setlist and a few pictures from the Forum gig taken by Abbie Jenkinson mostly from the photography pit in front of the stage. They're good aren't they?
The setlist managed to survive all 4 shows without getting lost / ripped / trodden on (delete as applicable) although it was only correct for the first two gigs (Manchester and Bristol) as 'London Dub' was dropped (it's on the forthcoming album) with 'In A Rut' coming into the set after 'Fools' for the Bournemouth and London shows.
The photos show Molara on vocals and percussion, Segs on bass, Dave Ruffy on drums, Seamus Beaghen on keyboards and your humble narrator (wearing Dave Ruffy's hat!) on the electric guitar. I still can't believe it sometimes but, yes, it's really me.
The splendid Aural Sculptures blog has a favourable revue of the Forum show (Adrian has also given a plug for these hallowed pages - top man!) although I'm pleased to say that I've not really seen or heard any bad reports from any of the gigs. Good!
Incidentally I'm also playing Rebellion 2012 with the mighty T.V. Smith; this is more good news as our show there was my next-favourite gig of the year, and it makes the festival something for me to really look forward too. So I'm really looking forward to it!
Thursday, December 08, 2011
One step backwards, two step forwards
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of it's noisiest authorities insisted on it's being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only'
- 'A Tale Of Two Cities' (1859) by Charles Dickens
Fast forward a few hundred years to the 1960s and the sound of the flattened fifth has been picked up by those well-known purveyors of witchcraft The Jimi Hendrix Experience whose classic single 'Purple Haze' starts with a tritone between Bb on the guitar and E on the bass; soon after Black Sabbath are using it in songs like 'Symptom Of The Universe' and 'Black Sabbath' itself, and bands like Metallica and Slayer use it extensively to this day, with Slayer even going so far as to name one of their albums 'Diabolus In Musica'. I suppose heavy metal musicians and indeed fans like the idea of being allied to Satan and all his little wizards although as far as I know no one involved has ever been put on trial for witchcraft; I must admit I always thought was a rather extreme thing to suggest for simply putting two musical notes next to each other, but what do I know?
Well I thought it was a rather extreme thing to do until sometime around 9.30 pm last Wednesday, when I found myself gripped by an unreasonable desire to inflict pain, torture, painful torture, even death on Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier for writing 'Loco In Acapulco'. If you've got five minutes have a listen to it here and tell me if I'm being unreasonable. You might disagree but I cannot for the life of me work out how The Four Tops, one of the greatest Motown acts of all time, managed to get involved with such unspeakably unlistenable tosh. Or am I wrong? Is it actually better than classics like 'Reach Out I'll Be There', 'Standing In The Shadows Of Love' and 'Bernardette'? What do you think? There's not a flattened fifth in sight but as far as I'm concerned it's proof that The Devil exists. No punishment is too great for anybody who had anything to do with the production of this song. Kill 'em all! Now! Argh!
In case you were wondering what I was up to as I contemplated such murderous violence, I was on stage with Pete and Matt (Jake and Elwood) and Richard (saxophone) playing a Chicago Blues Brothers playback show in front of a room full of people who couldn't have cared less whether we were there or not. I've more or less driven from my mind where we were and what we were doing there, and I have absolutely no idea why we were playing the song in question as it's got about as much to do with the Blues Brothers as, say, 'I Can't Help Myself'. Mind you we played that as well. As I put my guitar down at the end of the show I thought to myself 'that was my least enjoyable show of 2011'. And it was. It was horrific. The only thing that got me through it was the thought of the next two nights with Ruts D.C....
...which thankfully didn't let me down. (I don't know what I would have done if they had!) The Bournemouth Academy show was great but the London show at The Forum in Kentish Town was something else again. We'd bought 'In A Rut' into the set at Bournemouth - when we ran through it at the soundcheck we got a round of applause from The Alabama 3 members and crew who saw it, which bode well for the performance of the song that evening. The show was the best one so far, but the next night pushed things to greater heights; with the venue pretty much full before we went on we started well with 'Whatever We Do' followed by two songs from the new album 'Mighty Soldier' and 'One Step'. Molara's fine vocal on 'Jah War' got a great reaction from the dancefloor before a medley of a new song 'Smiling Culture' and the old Ruts classic 'S.U.S.' led us into 'Fools'. Next it's the afore-mentioned 'In A Rut'; Segs had invited Ainsley (who sings on some of the new album) to join us for the middle section which you can see here - he's very good isn't he? We prefaced 'Babylon's Burning' with a short section from 'Weak Heart' - as I put my guitar down at the end of the show I thought to myself 'that was my most enjoyable show of 2011'. And it was. It was terrific. Does that mean that I've just proved that God exists?!?
Back to basics on Saturday night, with The Uppercut returning to The Dolphin for the first time in a while; the evening marked the 24th anniversary of Noel and Bridie first taking the pub over, and was a suitably wild 'n' wacky affair. We hadn't played together for a while (they'd played some shows while I was away in Dubai with Pete depping on guitar) and so were a bit loose here and there but the energy of the performance more than made up for the odd mistake. Well, I think it did... Noel took to the microphone towards the end of the evening to thank everyone for coming and then to lead everyone in what he referred to as 'the universal football song', 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. A cracking evening.
My third Sunday afternoon gig in four weeks (I don't think that's ever happened before!) saw myself and Big Al Reed return to The Feathers in Chalfont St. Giles. No sign of the chap with Tourettes Syndrome this time (apparently he'd been out the night before) but everyone there seemed to enjoy our efforts despite Al suffering from a bad throat. He's invited a mate of his called Barry along to play a few songs on slide guitar - when I asked him what he was going to play he didn't really know as he was not used to playing solo, and would I like to join him on lead guitar? Of course I would... as he started the first song I realised that I had no idea what he was going to play, or indeed if he was able to play at all - fortunately he was excellent, and it was really good to play some blues with him.
With Christmas looming it's all systems go at Balcony Shirts, meaning that I've been in the shop every day this week. But The Uppercut were out again last night, at The Six Bells in Brentford celebrating bass maestro Terry Peaker's 60th birthday. He'd invited a lot of his musician friends along, many of whom got up to play a song or two - it all got a bit chaotic in places with far too much hippie-ish jamming for my not-at-all hippie-ish liking, but everything went well and Terry was well pleased with the evening.
So there you have it - in the course of this posting I've played my best gig of the year, my worst gig of the year, and proved that God and The Devil both (probably) exist. Not a bad week's work then...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
