'...the sun's not yellow, it's chicken...'

After the euphoria of last weekend it's back down to Earth with a bump for your humble narrator this week with the news of three deaths:-

Roy Chuter was a man that I can't claim to have known well, but I have very good memories of the time that I did spend with him. Back in the late Eighties and early Nineties The Price were often featured in 'Wake Up!' fanzine, and Roy was a good friend of Dave T. the editor who I saw at gigs here and there and at Dave's legendary 'Womblestock' parties. Lately he'd been running The Duke Of Wellington pub in Shoreham where I played with both The Price and T.V. Smith in recent years. I heard of his passing from an email from Dave, and I had chance to talk to Attila The Stockbroker about him at The Rebellion Festival who told me the sad story of his demise. The depth of feeling for the man can be seen by even a cursory glance at the Brighton And Hove Albion F.C. North Stand forum - Roy is someone who will be missed by many many people.

The man I always knew simply as 'old Michael' died earlier this month - a familiar figure in and around the pubs of Uxbridge, his tales of the London jazz scene of the 1950s and '60s never failed to amuse and entertain. He came to see The Upper Cut not-so-long ago - when I next saw him he came up to me with the words 'too loud man!' Let's face it, he was probably correct... in recent years East saw more of him than I did, but he'd always have plenty to say whenever I did see him, and would often leave us both with the words 'I'll see you two reprobates later'. Again I won't pretend that he was a close friend but he was someone that I spent some good times with, and a night at The Load Of Hay will never be quite the same again.     

And talking of The Load Of Hay, it was in said establishment last Thursday evening that I heard that Chicken Legs Weaver had died last month. I saw Andy play there on several occasions (I also saw him at The 100 Club supporting Wilko Johnson, and he played with The Flying Squad at Tropic At Ruislip back in February 2010) and I'll remember him as a great character, a fine musician and a fiercely committed bluesman who played his music with a fire and a passion that many aspire to but only very few achieve. I'll also remember him (and indeed Roy and Michael) as being a very nice guy, which I think you'll agree is a pretty good way to remember anyone.

Having played a show with Utter Madness earlier this month it was with great interest that I made my way over to the afore-mentioned Tropic At Ruislip on Friday evening to see It Must Be Madness. They seem to be a popular bunch as over 200 people turned up for the show, and very good they were too with many an obscure album track among the expected hits. I missed much of their second set as I was on the phone to Dave Ruffy attempting to plan this weekend's Ruts D.C. appearance at The 3 Chords Festival in Penzance (we never close!) but they certainly had the crowd dancing by the end of the evening. And it was great to see the club so full of people - we could do with more venues like this couldn't we?

Saturday night it was over to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham to see Midnight. As I didn't have a gig myself I probably would have gone along anyway to give Big Al Reed (he plays saxophone in the band) a bit of support, but with the man himself Terry Peaker busy elsewhere the prospect of seeing my old mate Johnny Squirrel depping on bass was just too good to miss. He made a very good job of it too, often in the face of adversity given the shall-we-say 'eccentric' nature of some of the performances. He made a very good job of depping in The Blistering Buicks the next afternoon at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook too, where our three sets were lapped up by the faithful and the landlady offered us two more gigs in the next couple of months. Excellent!

Monday morning in Balcony Shirts began with the first person through the front door asking if he could use the toilet, then looking astonished when he was told that he couldn't. I heard myself say 'this is going to be a weird day' to new-ish recruit Simona, and much as I might be wrong about a lot of things I was proved right about this one, with the next person asking if they could have an envelope (that's 'have' not 'buy', and why they thought a t-shirt printing shop would be the place to go for such a thing is anybody's guess) followed by a chap asking if we sold tennis racquets. Some people even asked if we printed t-shirts... all in a day's work I guess, although things brightened up no end when a young lady told us that she ran The Blue Plague Printing School - 'it's an anti-Tory printing workshop, we'll be doing it again soon, you should come along' said she cheerily. You know, I just might! 
From there it was over to Soundlab Studios in Loughton for a Back To Zero rehearsal where an enjoyable and very productive session saw new songs tried alongside some cover versions to be played at a private party this coming weekend. A long day, but a good one - as I sit here thinking about the three gentleman featured earlier in this posting that feels like a great thing to be able to say. Well, I think that it is - don't you?

'Adios to the Manchester Cowboy'

I used to love the Monkees television show when I was a kid. Well I think I did - I was about 5 when it started so maybe I remember it more from later repeats? In any case, I loved it. Maybe you did too? Along with the Beatles films 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!' they showed your (young) humble narrator what fantastic fun it was to be in a pop group. Well, they just muck around all day in cool clothes don't they? No arguing, unlimited money and the odd bit of singing - now that would be a job worth having wouldn't it?

Years later I realised that their records were some of the greatest examples of 1960s pop music. Detractors said that they were just manufactured by a television production company and called them 'The Pre-Fab Four' as they were originally intended to be an American rival to The Beatles; they also derided them for not playing on their early records. The same detractors no doubt hail 'Good Vibrations' and 'Pet Sounds' as works of genius - but they also featured session musicians and was recorded while the 'real' Beach Boys were away on tour. The Phil Spector productions of the time also are held up as works of art, yet again they are pure products of the studio rather than being a group performance - but of course Wilson and Spector were to cool to be criticised, while The Monkees were 'just' actors playing the part of a pop group. Well they may have started out as that, but they became one of the most iconic examples of '60's pop culture (you could of course argue that their 'manufactured' status also contributes to that title) and, I say again, made some of the greatest records of the era. Davy Jones's death means the end of The Monkees - I for one are very saddened by that news, and I happen to think that any pop music fan should be sad too.

And Ronnie Montrose has died - hardly a household name to many (although I guess that depends upon your house!) but a great guitarist none the less. I first heard of him when my older cousins Steve and Gary played me 'Bad Motor Scooter' by Montrose way back in the mid-'70s (it was on 'The Warner Bros Music Show' sampler album) which for me remains one of the great American rock recordings of the time. Here is an OGWT clip of the band from 1974 playing said song, featuring a young Sammy Hagar on vocals who of course went on to bigger but not necessarily better things. Great stuff. No really, it is. Ronnie himself went on to play for all sorts of people and remained an excellent and well-regarded musician who was still out gigging until recently. He is a sad loss to the guitar-playing World.

When last we spoke your writer wasn't exactly at the top of his game; fortunately things have improved and I'm more-or-less back to (ahem!) normal. I still haven't worked out if my sickness was caused by something that I ate or one of these bugs that we all hear about - I suppose it doesn't really matter although it would be nice to know if a weird way. Anyway I still felt a bit shaky several days after the incident last Saturday in Ascot so for once it was probably a good thing that I didn't have any gigs over the weekend. I did however see Chicken Legs Weaver at The Load Of Hay on Sunday evening - it was the first gig for Andy with a new band line-up and overall went very well, with excellent versions of 'The Israelites' (slower and heavier than the Desmond Dekker original, with barely a hint of ska) and 'When The Levee Breaks' (similar to the Led Zeppelin version, maybe a bit bluesier) standing out. I'm playing there with The Rikardo Brothers this Sunday, then Kris Dollimore returns on Sunday 25th March. Now that's something to look forward too!

In the meantime I'm off to listen to The Monkees and, er, Montrose. 'Here we come, walking down the street...' 'you get on your bad motor scooter and ride...' Hmm... I wonder how many other people are playing those two songs back-to-back?

Celebration day

Behold this photograph of the sign above the door at The Bulls Head in Barnes - I thought I'd include it here because (a) I like it and (b) I nearly got run over while I was taking it. Well - there were no cars for miles when I started!

Last Monday saw a return to said venue for The Ali Mac Band, or The AMT Band ('Ali Mac with a Twist') as Ali now calls this larger line-up version of his band. Sadly we couldn't get a full rehearsal for the gig - Ali, Simon, Bob and myself managed a couple of hours together at Simon's house a few days earlier - and that coupled with the low turnout and slightly odd sound (the monitors weren't too good and the overall sound seemed a bit 'muted') meant that overall it wasn't as good a show as our debut there back in March. Still I did get to meet Laurie who was running the gig in place of George who wasn't feeling too well; Laurie used to work as a backstage security man for Led Zeppelin and as you might imagine has quite a story to tell, none of which can be repeated here - suffice to say that in his opinion many if not all of the legendary tales told in books like 'Hammer Of The Gods' and 'Stairway To Heaven' had been as he put it, 'toned down for publication'. Oo-er! Oh and there was a bloke off the telly in the front bar but he didn't come in to watch the band - a bit of a shame, as we could have done with another audience member...

The Upper Cut had an excellent rehearsal on Wednesday, when we spent 3 hours at Bush Studios in Shepherds Bush ironing out a few shaky moments from the current set as well as attempting some additional material - our next gig is at The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Saturday 21st August which I'm looking forward to already, not least as it's Horsepower Hairdressing supremo Adam's birthday; if it's anything like June's 'Loose Goose' event it should be an interesting night... I took everybody copies of Big Tel's recording of last month's Load of Hay gig (and here is a clip from from East's film of the event, it's a bit dark but hopefully you get the idea) so we've all gone away to have a listen and see what else can be done to improve things. It's a good band to play in, which was reflected by Terry the bass's comment afterwards that it was 'great to be at a rehearsal when you're not clockwatching' - how right he is.

And it was an unusual gig last night, at Griddles in Uxbridge. Organised by Jon Davies a.k.a. Jonny Guitar (not sure I'd give myself a nickname like that but there you go!) to celebrate Aden the landlord's birthday it featured THE FRAUD SQUAD - myself and Andy from The Flying Squad with Jon guesting on guitar. After a quick rehearsal (another one!) at Jon's house it was over to the venue to get set up and await further instruction. I'd spoken to Andy 'Chicken Legs' Weaver earlier in the day (he's got a amplifier for sale if anyone's interested) who arrived just as we were about to start; Jon had quite a few friends coming along as did Aden - by the time we went on for our first set at 9 o'clock the place was getting mighty crowded with all the restaurant tables booked (it's a steakhouse-type of place although when they offered us some food it was great to see a vegetarian option of pasta, and very nice it was too) and plenty of people at the bar. Minor panic ensued when Andy's harmonicas fell off the amplifier that he'd left them on (we weren't THAT loud were we?!?) and Jon's guitar started emitting a rather unpleasant crackling noise (he should get that looked at! He also caused some consternation on Andy's part by using a wha wha pedal...) but overall things went well with our second set including the inevitable 'Happy Birthday' and our third (third!) set ending with a somewhat impromptu version of 'Honky Tonk Women' to the general approval of all concerned. A good gig.

At our AMT Band rehearsal Bob had remarked that his daughter's father-in-law had Motor Neurone Disease; when I said that my mum had suffered from it for 18 years he looked shocked and then apologised for having mentioned it. As we were leaving I told him that he didn't have to feel sorry... at the bar in the venue I asked him how things were going and he said that since last week's rehearsal the chap had sadly died. It was my turn to apologise...

It's my mum's birthday today - I really wish that she was still here to celebrate it. Happy birthday mum. Miss you.

Still Ill / Getting Better

I woke up Saturday morning to the rather grim realisation that things weren't getting any better - leaving aside the coughing, spluttering, sneezing and headache (did I mention that I've got ManFlu?) I found that my eyelids were all but glued together with what might best and indeed most politely be described as 'gunge'. Not good frankly. 'You've got an infection' said the long-suffering Shirley, with the look of someone who knows that what they've just said is entirely accurate. At least she didn't say 'I told you so'...

Actually she did, but I'm not going to tell you that here!

With a day in Balcony Shirts followed by a gig in the evening in prospect it was off to the chemist to spend some money - rather a lot of money I thought but the way the pharmacist spoke made me think that buying things like eye drops was a pretty good idea, in the same way as the manner in which he said the words 'Go to see your doctor on Monday' made me think that I should indeed go to see my doctor on Monday... a blearily busy Balcony day followed (Scott was if anything even worse for wear than your humble narrator, although his condition was more down to over-indulgence than anything else, the lucky sod!) 'though I didn't feel particularly worse by the end of it - that said the fact that I fell asleep almost as soon as I got through the front door is pretty significant if you think about it.

The evening's gig was in uncharted territory in more ways that one; a new venue - The Ox in South Oxhey - for a new line-up of Youngblood. With Mick the drummer falling by the wayside myself and Terry the bass have installed Roger Brewer (our old partner-in-crime from our days in The Informers) on drums. Terry the singer took the opportunity to suggest we get a new name, and came up with The 4 Faces which we used for this show - not sure what we'll end up with but that one did for this one, and a raucous evening it was, with men taking their t-shirts off to dance and women demanding request after request from the ever genial Terry meaning that we attempted 'Get It On', 'Bad Moon Rising' and 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It?' with varying degrees of success. We ignored all the other ones! In the meantime Terry the bass bemoaned the changing colour of crisp packets, I remained disappointed that the venue hadn't turned out to be a John Entwistle theme bar and we all agreed that we should have some good times to look forward to, whatever we end up being called.

Things hadn't improved on Sunday but at least they hadn't got any worse - that said I spent much of the day half-asleep and the rest actually asleep. Well, that's what it felt like anyway... after a possibly ill-advised amount of medicine(s) and carrying as many boxes of tissues as I could it was off to Tropic Of Ruislip for a Flying Squad gig with the excellent Chicken Legs Weaver. As we arrived Big Tel and Dave were just getting the P.A. set up, George the promoter was moving tables and chairs into position and all was set for good evening. We soundchecked with a thunderous 'Ridin' on the L&N' and it all sounded good to me - then again I probably wasn't the best judge of things! After CLW's soundcheck a problem developed - our drummer Dave had hoped to record the show on his laptop directly from Big Tel's P.A. system but it wouldn't work; Tel came up to me with the words 'I think I've upset Dave' just as Andy came over to say that Dave had gone home in a state of some distress. 'He's coming back 'though' said Andy not looking totally convinced... he did come back, arriving sometime during CLW's fine set. He went down well as did we - there could have been more people there but the ones that were there certainly seemed to have a good evening. From my point of view it was... ok. I was flagging by halfway through our show and, without wishing to sound too melodramatic (for once!) by the end of our set I'm not sure I physically could have played much more. And I don't think I played particularly well 'though I suppose there's an excuse if I want to use it? Then again my old mate Andy Stubbs (who booked The Price many times during his reign of terror booking bands at Brunel University and is now Uxbridge Town Centre Manager) came up to me afterwards and told me that I sounded like 'a cross between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones' so I guess I can't have been that bad as that might well be the best guitar-related compliment that I've ever received, from my point of view at least.

Monday morning and it's time to visit the doctor. I told him my symptoms then recounted the pharmacist's thoughts - he said something like 'oh well, they're supposed to say things like that' then rather reluctantly examined me, first with a stethoscope... 'there's nothing wrong with your chest' he said as he pushed his thumb against my left eyebrow. 'Maybe not, but when you did that it felt like you'd just tried to pull my face off'. He remained unmoved - 'you might have a touch of something like sinusitis I suppose' he said as he wrote out the inevitable prescription for the inevitable anti-biotics. I think I was in the surgery for around 2 minutes and didn't feel as though I'd been taken particularly seriously; on the other hand Shirley observed that, judging by the strength of the anti-biotics that he'd prescribed, he'd probably just not wanted to worry me. Who knows?

Still one way or another it was time to feel better, and to feel better as soon as possible, as it's that time again... mad as it may seem (particularly to the band members!) this year marks the 25th anniversary of the formation of The Price. With this in mind we're playing as often as we can this year (have a look on our website for details of the first shows) as well as hopefully doing some recording and (gulp!) writing some new material. With this in mind it was time for a return to Ruff Rockers Rehearsal Studios for an epic 6 hour session during which we ran through over 30 of our own songs (did we really write that many?!?) along with a few willfully obscure cover versions, and during which I drink 2 bottles of Lucozade, took probably too many painkillers and got through the whole session without keeling over; that said I ran out of steam when I got home and was asleep within 30 minutes of getting through the front door. Rock'n'Roll eh?

And I've had yesterday and today off sick, during which I've taken my tablets like a good boy and attempted to do as little as possible - but I did watch 'It Might Get Loud' again, and damn good it was too. Mind you I only recognised about half of it- I must have been more out-of-consciousness than in it first time around! Still at last I do believe I'm starting to feel a bit better. Good!