'Walking down the King's Road with some friends of mine...'

Back to the 'there's only time for a quick round-up of what's been happening in Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars' format...

- I went to 'Exhibitionism' at The Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea
I like The Rolling Stones more than I sometimes realise, if you know what I mean. And I liked this exhibition too - well I must have liked it, as I managed to spend over three hours there stumbling from room to room. There's lots for a nerd like myself to enjoy, and plenty of stuff for normal people too - if you're thinking of going then get along there before it closes!  

- I saw Dead Men Walking at Dingwalls. 
From Chelsea it was a short tube train journey up to Camden Town where with the help of Adrian from Aural Sculptors and his wife Gunta I eventually found Dingwalls (it's all changed around there since I was a lad I can tell you!) just as the band were sound checking. On stage from left to right were Kirk Brandon, Dave Ruffy, Segs and Jake Burns - a formidable line-up be anybody's standards. And I'm pleased to say that they sounded as good as you'd hope that they would. Highlights of the evening were many and varied, although the moment that sticks in my mind was when myself, Segs and ex - U.K. Subs guitarist Jet were in The Elephant's Head shortly before the show half-seriously considering some sort of appearance at the the then - happening open mic night when a chap got on stage and performed 'Rasputin' on a stylophone. He followed it with 'Ace Of Spades'. We decided not to play. How do you follow that?

- I played two shows with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks.
With Pete still away I was on solo guitar duties in Greenford at The Black Horse on Saturday night; he then returned the next afternoon for a gig at Sally B's in Hoddesdon. The first show was good and the second was even better - things are definitely going in the right direction for Big Al and The Boys.

And hopefully things will be going in the right direction this week too, but more about that next time, when I've got time…

'Time and the devil is gonna bring me everything I need...'

Well it seems like ages since my last blog posting - probably because it is ages since my last blog posting. It turned out that it was a long two weeks, not one… it's been a busy, one might even say intense time since last we spoke - here, in no particular order, is what's been happening...

- Work has continued on the Ruts D.C. album 'Music Must Destroy'. 
Myself and Segs recorded some guitars at Jamm in Brixton and even though I say so myself, we made a pretty good job of it. There's still a way to go, but we'll get there in the end.

- I saw The Blockheads in Chelsea. 
I'd not been to Under The Bridge before - what an extraordinary venue. And what an extraordinary band The Blockheads were, are, and will continue to be. A great gig.

- Ruts D.C. rehearsed for and played at the 'Scotland Calling' festival.
A couple of short sessions at The Music Complex in Deptford set us up for a barnstorming 40 minute set at The ABC in Glasgow, which in turn set your humble narrator up for a barnstorming evening that saw much drinking, merriment and a fair bit of time spent in The Ramonas's' dressing room (no, I'm not quite sure how that happened either!) among the other many and varied highlights. Excellent!

- I worked many-a day at Balcony Shirts. 
It's a busy time in the shop so I've been helping out whenever I can.

- We made a promotional video for the new Ruts D.C. single 'Psychic Attack'. 
Filmed by Graham Trott and featuring noted actor Peter O'Connor, I've seen a rough cut and it looks bloody great. The single and indeed the video is out at the end of next week. Exciting stuff!

- Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Queen's Arms in Colnbrook.
It was Al's birthday, which went some way towards explaining the lightness of the mood - right up until the moment that someone shouted 'IT"S ALL KICKING OFF OUTSIDE' and virtually the whole pub ran to the windows or indeed went outside, presumably in the hope of witnessing said 'kicking off'. I always think that people who do things like that have never been unfortunate enough to have been caught in a violent incident, as anyone who has generally moves quickly in the other direction… incidentally it didn't all kick off outside, or indeed anywhere else for that matter. Good.

- I guested with Department S at The Fleece in Bristol supporting The U.K. Subs. 
I joined Dept. S for their last three songs and they sounded great with or without me; The Subs were of course as mighty as ever, and first band on Knock Off were pretty good too.

- Probably some other things as well.
It's hard to remember sometimes...

Obviously there's a lot to more to say about all of the above but, rather like the tale of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra, that's a story for which the world is not yet prepared. Or that I haven't got time to write up. Or something. 

More this week. Or next week. Or something.

Parklife

These two photographs show the stages that The Chicago Blues Brothers played on this weekend. The smaller indoor one was the scene of our performance at The Pheasantry in Chelsea, while the outdoor one is in London's Hyde Park and is considerably bigger, although as it turned out we probably had about the same amount of room at both shows... 

Friday evening saw our first show at The Pizza Express on The King's Road. We'd been told that we could get into the basement venue at 4pm but there was a meeting there until 5 o'clock so I dropped my stuff off and walked back to The Saatchi Gallery. Many years ago I went through a period of visiting art galleries on a fairly regular basis (I think I thought it would do me good!?!) and I enjoyed my time here, although just under an hour was long enough for me, if you know what I mean. (Yes, I know, I sound like a complete heathen. Maybe I am!)
Back at the venue the troops were amassing - Matt and Mike as Jake and Elwood, Squirrel on bass, Chris depping for Ian on keyboards, Steve depping for Marc on drums, Richard on tenor saxophone with Ian joining on baritone saxophone, Steve depping for Dave on trumpet and Tracy on vocals. Considering how little we've been together lately (these shows doubled the number for 2012!) it all went very well; we've played at The Pizza Express in Maidstone on quite a few occasions (that's where this year's other shows have been) which is normally good fun, and this one certainly was too although I for one was interested to see that the often-held theory about London audiences being reserved compared to other parts of the country being for want of a better word, 'proven'. Whereas the Maidstone audience is often up on their feet dancing Friday's crowd sat and watched throughout - they joined in here and there and certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, but you felt as though you were more 'on show' than at the other venue. Well, I certainly did anyway. Still I hopefully don't sound too cynical (ooh imagine that!) when I say that it was a good warm-up for the next day's show.

It's official - I'm an artist. At last!

When we were first told that we were going to be playing at The Proms In The Park I must say that found the whole thing to be 'amusing' in both senses of the word i.e. it made me smile and it was also an extremely unlikely (on the surface at least) place for the band to find themselves at. Actually it all makes a bit more sense when you see that the first part of the day featured theatre and tribute shows (Bjorn Again, the cast of 'Let It Be' etc) which we fairly obviously fitted into, while the latter part of the evening featured Kylie Minogue, Alfie Boe and Il Divo among others. This was pretty much a separate event to our bit and I was very much looking forward to seeing these acts (I'm not likely to see any of them anywhere else!) although as we'll discover things didn't quite go according to plan...
When I arrived around 12.30pm it was already getting very hot. It's often strange to see venues with no people in them, and Hyde Park (or to be more accurate, the part of the park where the shows are held) was no exception. As I walked towards the stage I became aware of the size of the area that we were going to be playing to - it was big. Very big. I've seen The Who here among others. Some bands play places like this all the time. The lucky buggers.

Our gear set up stage right.

Although the stage was the biggest one that I've ever played on (so far - let's be optimistic eh?) we actually only occupied a small part of it; as you look at the picture at the start of this posting we were on the far left hand end. This often happens at events such as these where several acts are set up on the stage at the same time, making for very quick changeovers between shows. We only had a short time to soundcheck, but with the mighty Ian Bond making a welcome reappearance behind the mixing desk things were sounding great in no time. The gates opened at half past two, and by the time Tony Blackburn (oh yes!) introduced us at exactly 5.15 (a good Who-approved time don't you think?) there were an estimated 40,000 people there to witness our 25 minute performance. And what they saw was, even though I say so myself, an absolutely excellent show from band and singers alike, with everybody rising to the occasion and a fine reaction from the audience. And then, suddenly, it was all over. We'd bearly finished 'Gimme Some Loving' before the afore-mentioned Mr. Blackburn had introduced The Gypsy Queens and we were taking our gear offstage. All the band seemed pleased with how it had went - there had definitely been some pre-match nerves floating around although you'd never have known from the performance. And me? I could have played all night!

The view from the stage
 at the start of our set.

Some of the band were off to play other gigs whereas the rest of us were looking forward to seeing the rest of the evening's proceedings. I walked out front to watch Bjorn Again - I was never the biggest Abba fan but was interested to see and hear them as they're one of the most successful tribute acts in the World. I was just attempting to use my phone to take a picture of them to put on this here blog when it rang - it was Big Al Reed. Was I busy? He was gigging in Amersham and Chris the keyboard player hadn't turned up, and he was of the opinion that it'd sound great with me and Bob his 'other' guitarist.

I thought about it for a minute. If I got myself into gear I could be there in an hour or so on the train, or I could stay and watch the rest of the evening's entertainment. So - what do you think I did?

Well it's obvious really isn't it? Three hours after playing to 40,000 people in Hyde Park I was playing to around 1/1000th of that number at a birthday party in a garden in Buckinghamshire with Al and Bob. Strange but true. Oh well - hopefully I'll see Kylie another time.

Norwegian would (sorry!)

Oh dear - Boris Johnson has been re-elected as Mayor of London. Not good frankly. I was always a fan of Ken Livingstone for better or for worse, and it's a shame to hear that he won't be standing for office again. I won't do the 'how can any working class person vote Tory?' rant again as it's getting a bit obvious these days, but I fear for the next few years... and if that's not bad enough Chelsea beat Liverpool in the F.A. Cup Final. Bah! Things can only get better... hopefully...

In the meantime I received an email this week from Denis Kamphaug. 'Who he?' I hear you cry. (Actually I don't, but you know what I mean I think.) Well back in the early days of The Price (the mid-1980s in case you were wondering) I played on some recordings for Denis, who became better known in Norway as Denis Decay, singer and songwriter for The Siren Clouds. In the course of his correspondence he sent a link to his band's Norwegian Wikipedia page, which incredibly features my name. Obviously I've got to put a link to it here - what was that I was saying a few posts ago about wallowing in egotism and self-publicity?

Two gigs for The Uppercut this weekend, both of them short notice events. The first was on Saturday at The Kings Arms in Hanwell - The Bolaji Blues Band were due to be playing but couldn't make it, and so Pete (who deps for me when I can't make Uppercut gigs and also plays with The BBB on occasions) suggested our band. Excellent! Judging by our evening there it could turn out to be a good venue for us and indeed bands generally, with John the guv'nor being a very helpful and enthusiastic chap. There's a small stage across a corner of the back room which would have been a bit of a squeeze with all of us on it so myself and the two Terrys stood on the floor in front of it while mine and Terry's amplifiers joined Roger and his drums on the stage. After a couple of songs we got the 'can you turn it down a bit lads?' treatment, but as more people arrived that was soon forgotten. By the end of our second set there was a fair bit of dancing and we were called back for several encores, which almost enough to take my mind off Liverpool losing earlier in the day - although the word 'almost' is very important in this sentence.

After the show a chap came over asking which one of the band played in The Ruts; well even though I didn't, he obviously meant me... he introduced himself as Ian, and when we got chatting we realised that we knew each other from many years ago - he was the bass player in Snatch And The Dead (great name!) who played a few shows with The Price in our early years. It was good to see him again; there have been quite a few reminders of those dim and distant days lately, and none of them have been bad - not from my point of view at least.

I was minding my own business on Monday evening when my phone rang - it was Simon of What's On In Uxbridge and Ace! club fame, he was due to be DJ-ing at the Ska, Soul and Rock 'n' Roll All-Dayer' at The Crown And Treaty in Uxbridge on the coming Sunday and he wondered if The Uppercut would be interested in playing. Of course we would! 

When we arrived Reverend Blow were just starting their second set, they sounded good if a little ramshackle in places although I believe that they're quite a new band so I guess a few more gigs should tighten them up a bit. Their setlist meant that we were obliged to leave a few songs out of our show, although that was the least of our worries as Terry's vocal microphone stopped working during our second song. He changed the batteries (it's a cordless radio mic) but to no avail - fortunately we were able to borrow a replacement (thanks Hughie!) for the remainder of our first set before Terry managed to get his working again in the interval. Things really took off in our second set, and by the time we encored with 'Get Ready' even Dave the guv'nor was dancing. This hopefully bodes well for a return booking! After we'd packed our gear away The Undersound took to the stage - the afore-mentioned Hughie broke a string during 'Long Train Running' but overall it was probably the best that I've seen them play. And it was good to see plenty of people in the pub, which in these days of under-attended gigs was a welcome sight. All in all a very enjoyable couple of evenings.

Right - it's the first Cool Britannia show next weekend, which means it's our last rehearsal this week. I'm looking forward to it, albeit with some trepidation - have we done enough work? We'll all know soon enough...

10 years gone

I guess you know that you're old when you find yourself saying things like 'when I was a lad...'

When I was a lad I used to really like football. It used to be good didn't it? I was a Liverpool fan then, and I'm a Liverpool fan now, although I don't think I really care too much about the game these days - and not just because the Red Army aren't the team that they once were. After the Wayne Rooney 'is-he-isn't-he' transfer debacle last year my Dad, who began watching the sport since the 1940s said to me that the game was 'finished' - with Liverpool buying Andy Carroll from Newcastle for £35 million and then selling Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £50 million it's hard not to agree with him. There are homeless people living on the streets within a few hundred yards of the grounds of all the afore-mentioned clubs while mind-boggling sums of money are thrown in the general direction of players who have worse haircuts than the down-and-outs. Even if they don't score all season they will still be paid more each day than most people in this country earn in a year. I could rant on (and on) here, but instead will direct you to this classic appraisal of the situation courtesy of the ever-excellent Daily Mash - many a true word spoken in jest, as the old saying goes.

From the ridiculous to the sublime - I'm a big fan of Stanley Unwin. You remember Stanley Unwin don't you? Of course you do, he was the old chap who spoke in that wonderfully mad way that, as my Dad will recall, I literally fell off the settee laughing at as a youngster. He sadly died a few years ago but now he's back - sort of... an anonymous blogger has started where the great man left off, and if you click here you can join him 'from the grale beyonders, sprinkly wise worms in the earlodes of the human specie'. He's also on Twitter which has to be read to be believed. Deep joy!

Meanwhile the occasional ongoing obituaries continue - John Barry died last week. He might not have written The James Bond Theme' (or did he?) but he wrote some fantastic music for most of the other Bond films and many more besides. And back in January Gerry Rafferty died, as did Mick Karn - sad losses all. I've got the same birth date as Mick Karn, and I'm 50 this year - it doesn't seem 40-something years since I was falling off the settee laughing at Stanley Unwin, but it is. Time flies as they say. Another old saying, also true.

My mum died of Motor Neurone Disease 10 years ago tomorrow. It doesn't seem like 10 years. It doesn't seem any time at all. A year to the day after she left the building I somehow found myself alone in the house; at 2.50 p.m. (the time that she died) I stood in the front room where her motorised chair used to be, trying to work out how I felt. I remember feeling sad, lonely, and yet oddly relieved that her terrible suffering had been finally bought to an end. I looked out into the back garden where me and my brother used to play as kids, and remembered an able-bodied woman out in the sunshine with her family. A good memory. A better memory.

Suddenly the phone rang. Back to the real World Leigh...

'Hello'

'Hi! Is mum there?'

I nearly fainted.

'Erm...'

'Are you ok? I just called to talk to mum, is she there?'

'I think you've got the wrong number'

'Oh Sorry!'

If my phone rings at the same time tomorrow, I'm not going to answer it!