Ruts D.C ElectrAcoustic Tour July 2024

Ruts D.C are on tour this month. That's good.

This is a tour with a difference for us, as it's our first ElectrAcoustic Tour. Since last we spoke - and yes, it has been a while hasn't it? - we've recorded the third album in this format, featuring stripped-down versions of Ruts and Ruts D.C. material. In my not-so-humble opinion this is the best of the bunch, and if that wasn't exciting enough this album also features a brand new song - Segs bought the idea in, we all worked on it and 'Bound In Blood' was the result. No doubt we'll work it up as an electric number sometime soon, but to begin a song in this way was really interesting - thankfully it's turned out well (it wouldn't be on the album if it hadn't!) so it should feature in these live shows alongside material from the other two albums. We've played acoustic shows at The Rebellion Festival for the last few years, and played a couple of shows during lockdown (ooh - remember that?) in a sit-down format, but this is the first time we're presenting a show of this type on tour. Tickets are apparently going well, and I for one am really looking forward to it.

Before that we play an electric show - I hesitate to use the word 'normal' at the best of times, although I nearly used it here - at The Cryer Arts Centre in Carshalton. I think I've only played in Carshalton once before, way back in 2012 with the mighty T.V. Smith at The Water Tower which if I remember rightly is a local historical landmark. The Arts Centre looks like it's a splendid venue, and I believe that the show is sold out, which can only be a good thing if you think about it. And after the tour we return to the afore-mentioned Rebellion Festival in Blackpool which is more good news. Onwards and upwards, as they (whoever 'they' are) say...

Twin towers

Well it's been a busy few days for your humble narrator in mad-guitar-land, but first things first - I was saddened to hear of the death of Andy Williams. His brilliance as a singer is surely beyond dispute - indeed the word 'singer' hardly does him justice - but I remember him from 'The Andy Williams Show' when I was a lad, with The Cookie Bear and him shouting 'NOT NOW, NOT EVER, NEVER!' when the bear asked him for milk and cookies each show. It was funnier than it looks written here, honest! And talking of funny, Herbert Lom died last week - his extraordinary portrayal of Inspector Dreyfus in the 'Pink Panther' films was one of the funniest things that I'd ever seen when I first saw it way back when.

Time for another reunion, and this time a unexpected one. Back in the mid-1980s I did quite a few shows with Pete Turner, then the owner of local musical instrument emporium Thames Valley Guitars, as part of an acoustic guitar duo called The Blue Five. Pete was a bit older than me (he still is!) and liked some very different music to the racket that I usually listened to; one day we were in the shop talking when for no apparent reason Pete handed me an acoustic guitar and began playing some chords on another and I, more by luck than judgement, joined in. We played for several minutes before a customer came in and we obviously had to stop so that Pete could serve them (!) Both of us liked what we heard, and this led to us getting together at his house one afternoon - that same evening we made our way down to The Load Of Hay which at that time was home to Uxbridge Folk Club. If I remember correctly we played one of Pete's compositions called 'Jackie's Tune' and the old classic 'Basin Street Blues' - this began a somewhat unlikely musical alliance that sporadically continues to this day. (Here is a clip of us playing at the L of H back in 2010 - our first gig this century!) He was up in Uxbridge on Thursday morning, and it was great to meet up for some coffee and some 'do you remember when...' moments, not least when we walked around town trying to remember what shops used to be where and what that pub used to be called. Great stuff. Pete mostly plays percussion these days, notably with Silvia Nicolatto and The Anglo-Cornish Project which from what he says seems to be going well. 

It's always good to be gigging with T.V. Smith and Friday's show was no exception, being part of his annual Earthbound gigs which T.V. plays for 'T.V.'s United Tour Supporters', also known as The TUTS. I was lucky enough to be asked to play at the 2010 shows up in Yorkshire, last year's took place in Germany and my show with him this year was in the splendid surroundings of Carshalton Water Tower.
I stumbled out of Carshalton Train Station around quarter to five in the afternoon. After a few minutes attempting to find a friendly passer-by (there wasn't one!) I decided against my better judgement to use my phone to find the venue. I found the postcode on the website - so then, left out of the station, left again then left into West Street... as I walked around the block wondered if I could have just turned right out of the station? As I passed the footpath to the station (bah!) I heard someone call my name - it was Shaun, who told me that the venue was further up the road but that The Hope was only a couple of hundred yards away... there we met up with Tony a.k.a. Fleagle the promoter (well, he organised the weekend's shows!) and various TUTS - T.V. was playing in a marquee in the garden the following evening, and it was obvious why the pub has just been named by CAMRA as one of the best pubs of 2012, it's really friendly and just 'right' if you know what I mean.
After a couple of drinks (only a couple, honest!) Shaun showed me around the Carshalton Ponds (very interesting) before making our way to the Water Tower - as we arrived T.V. was setting up his merchandise and the scene was set for a fine evening. Also on the bill were The Dirty Spoons who theoretically were supporting but were going on after us so that everyone who had travelled over by train (like me!) would be able to get home before the last train went.
After a quick soundcheck we agree to go on at 7.45. Our 26 song set takes in material from all of T.V.'s career, from The Adverts to the present day - I've gushed in these hallowed pages on quite a few occasions about how I feel about playing his songs, so this time I'll just say that every one was a reminder to me that he's simply one of the very best songwriters of them all. (See for yourself, as here we are playing 'Good Times Are Back' - excellent!) And I really enjoyed The Dirty Spoons too - a line up of banjo, mandolin, violin, bass guitar and washboard put on a fine show, and even included a version of T.V.'s 'The Lion And The Lamb'.  

Saturday evening saw The Upper Cut return to The Kings Arms in Harefield, and with my (previously) trusty Blues Deluxe combo still in the menders it was another job for the Blues Deville. Last time I played at the venue was back in July with Big Al Reed and the Cardiac Arrests, when Al's amp (a very expensive Egnater combo) went wrong; this time I thought I heard a few crackles here and there from mine but decided that it was just me getting paranoid... the band were a bit loose to begin with and took a few numbers to get going but by the time we started our second set we had a very active dancefloor, including a rather intoxicated young Irish lady who kept trying to talk to us during the songs. I always find it a bit weird when this happens - don't they realise where all that noise is coming from?

I don't mind admitting that I felt a bit bleary on Sunday morning - it's been a while since I did two late gigs in a row along with a Saturday in Balcony Shirts. Still no time to worry about that, as it's off to The Feathers in Chalfont St. Giles for an afternoon gig with Big Al Reed. When we arrived the pub was all but deserted, and we were told that there'd been 'a bit of trouble'... details were sketchy to say the least, but we decided to delay starting in the hope that a few people would arrive, and to play mainly without backing tracks (i.e. just on two guitars) in the hope that it might suit a 'quieter' venue than we're used to. All in all things went very well, with Ekkie joining in on sax here and there, the unsuspecting Pete from The Cane Toads being pressganged into joining in on a few songs, and even a few people in the audience by the end...

And last night saw that rarest of things -  a short notice Chicago Blues Brothers show. (Come to think of it CBB shows of any type have been pretty rare this year, but maybe we'll talk about that another day...) This one took place at The Guoman Tower Hotel which I last visited back in October 2008 (sometimes this blog comes in really handy, I'd never have remembered that otherwise!) and featured Pete and Matt in the hats and glasses, Dave and Richard on trumpet and saxophone, Squirrel on bass, Steve on drums, Tracy on vocals and, for the first time in quite a while, Roger on keyboards. Overall it was a pretty standard corporate show - it ran late meaning an appointment with the last train home (we - myself and the afore-mentioned Pete from The Cane toads who had come along to check the show out as he's doing some depping for me this Autumn - only just made it!) and I'm convinced that everyone there had forgotten that we'd played a minute or so after we'd finished our last song. Oh well, I guess every show can't be a T.V. Smith show, or indeed a Ruts D.C. show - we're in Birmingham this weekend, which should be a good one...

Equally cursed and blessed

Back in the '80s and '90s I was in a band called The Price. We were a good band. Well, I thought we were, although I suppose it's always difficult to be objective about something that you're involved in. But we were also an unlucky band, particularly if you apply this criteria... someone once said to me that success in the music industry was like success in any field - you needed to be lucky. But they then qualified this statement by saying that for them it was the luck of meeting the right person or persons. Without that you could be the best in the World, but no one would ever know. That's quite a thought isn't it? If they're correct about this then put simply, we didn't meet them, which I guess by this definition makes us unlucky doesn't it? 
When things went wrong for us - and they went wrong for us all the time, or at least they felt as though they did - one of us would rather ruefully refer to 'The Curse of The Price'. The rest of us would normally laugh at this, or shrug our collective shoulders before wondering if it really existed. Well, I certainly used to wonder, and on a fairly regular basis.

On Friday night I wondered about The Curse of The Price for the first time in a while - odd, because The Price were nowhere to be seen at the time. The Upper Cut were making their latest visit to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham, and a minute or so into our first number 'It's All Over Now' I was sure my guitar had stopped working for a second or two. No, it's ok, and sounds good... oh, it definitely went off there, but it's back on again now... oh now it's gone off all together. Bugger. 
We stopped the song as I fiddled with my leads. It came back on, but went off again. Hmmm... time for a 'we'll be back in five minutes' announcement and for me to look into the back of my amplifier to see if there's anything obvious wrong. The speaker leads were all connected, although the panel that fits them onto the speaker was loose so I used some insulation tape to fit it back on - not ideal but if it fixes the problem it should get me through the show. But as I turned the amp back on something told me that a bit of tape wasn't going to fix the problem. This could be serious.
And it was. 'Under My Thumb' shuddered to a halt as my guitar stuttered off, then on and then off again. Bah. At which point what happened next is what always happens next when this sort of thing befalls you at a gig - a very drunk bloke decides that he knows what's wrong and knows how to fix it. He doesn't and he doesn't, but that doesn't stop him telling you again and again that he does and he does. As I attempted to keep my temper he insisted that I needed to try my spare guitar. I'm sure he meant well, but he wasn't making things any easier. Against my better judgement we tried plugging my guitar straight into the P.A. but it sounded bad and I couldn't hear what I was playing. Terry suggested plugging my amp into another wall socket which I somehow knew wasn't going to make a difference; when I came back from a visit to the toilet they'd already done it, which annoyed me but as I couldn't turn time back there wasn't much that I could do about it. We tried a song but the amp malfunctioned again. That's it, the gig's over. Sorry. Big Al Reed and his chums tried in vain to convince me that it didn't sound that bad through the P.A. - but I'd had enough. Let's have a pint and then go home eh? So we did, but not before Sue the landlady had insisted on buying us a drink. What a nice lady she is.

I phoned Roger the amplifier repairman on Saturday morning - I explained what had happened to my ailing and up until this point usually very reliable Fender Blues Deluxe combo, he sounded suitably mystified as he usually does when a fault is explained to him over the phone but suggested that I get it over to him and he'll have a look at it for me. Good man. He asked if I have a spare? Well yes I do, but it blew a fuse last time I used it (here's the story) and although I'd left it running at home for several hours since then with no adverse effects I now had the curse of The Price to contend with... I decided to use my (spare) Blues Deville at the Price show that evening but to take along my Blues Junior as a (spare) spare - it wouldn't be loud enough on it's own but mic'd up it should be fine. It was still difficult not to be nervous though, and my morning at Balcony Shirts went slower than I would have liked as a result. 
The Price hadn't performed together in public since last March so some rehearsals have been in order. We got together at the start of August at Ruff Rockers in Uxbridge but things hadn't gone well - the songs sounded scrappy, and overall things weren't encouraging. After much discussion we reconvened at Ivy Arch Studios in Worthing a couple of weeks ago for something of a make-or-break session - we all agreed that if we sounded bad here we would considering cancelling the projected show at The Crown and Treaty, not least because it had been intended as a warm up show for our slot at The London Punk Weekender six days later, and that show had already been cancelled by the promoters. Thankfully the band sounded good - or maybe the studio suited us better? Either way we decided that the C & T show should go ahead, although we also decided to have a few hours warm up at Ruff Rockers on the afternoon of the gig. 
There's an old adage in bands along the lines of 'good rehearsal - bad gig, bad rehearsal - good gig'. As we wrapped up an undeniably good rehearsal twenty minutes early I decided that this was definitely not a time to mention The Curse...
We arrived at The Crown And Treaty around half past six; no sign of Big Tel and Dave with the P.A. yet so I wandered down to Galaxy for some chips and a bit of time to myself. I got back to the pub just as Tel and Dave were arriving - at which point I realised that I'd left my guitar effects pedalboard at home. I'm still not used to taking it with me... when I got back to the pub with it Tel was having trouble with the crossover on the P.A. - surely The Curse shouldn't effect him too? We soundchecked with 'The Man With The Smile' and about half of 'Turning Japanese', mainly because neither were due to be in our set, Tel's not happy but it doesn't sound bad to me. After us it's Scott's turn, he's performing solo as The Chilterns with a Guild semi-acoustic guitar and a harmonica, he plays fragments of a song or two before D.J. Chris starts D.J.-ing. People are arriving, the atmosphere is good - what could possibly go wrong?
Well, as it happens, nothing. Chris played some great music, Scott played well, we played a good set, my amplifier worked all the way through our show, everyone I spoke too really enjoyed themselves and as far as I know everybody went home happy. I certainly did anyway. That's a relief. In more ways than one.

And I spent much of today in a curse-free zone, rehearsing with T.V. Smith for this Friday's show at no lesser venue than Carshalton Water Tower. We sounded good so it should be a fine evening... oh hang on, what did I say earlier about good and bad rehearsals and gigs? Well it was wrong on Saturday and it'll be wrong on Friday too...