That Was The Year That Wasn't (Slight Return)

It has been exactly one year since my last blog posting.

So what, if anything, has changed?

Well...

Omicron. No, I'm not too good at the Greek Alphabet either - aside from the odd distant memory from Physics lessons sometime last Century it's not something I've used a lot, although I feel as though it's getting more useful all the time. As I type this I am in the grip of the latest Coronavirus variant - I've been asleep for much of the last few days and when I have been awake I've felt as though I've been in the ring with Mike Tyson in his prime, although thankfully things seem to be improving now. Christmas? Who needs it eh? Still vaccinations seem to be getting more popular these days, although we all know someone who hasn't had one because they don't like the idea of it or that think it's all a conspiracy - I've had two of 'em and and a booster and I still caught it, so it does make you wonder... that said, the general consensus seems to be that if you catch it after being vaccinated it does lessen the effect of the virus, which given how I've felt for the last few days is an interesting thought. 

And the British Government continues to make every mistake imaginable and still somehow remain in power. Surely we deserve better than this? I saw Labour MP David Lammy talking on TV not so long ago - the interviewer made a typically flippant remark about a comment he made criticising the international embarrassment that is our current, worst ever Prime Minister and Lammy snapped back with the words 'THIS USED TO BE A SERIOUS COUNTRY - DO YOU REALISE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF US NOW?' 

Now there's a question. 

Enough of such philosophical ramblings - I had my 60th birthday this year. 60! How on Earth did that happen?!? The Slogans were supposed to be playing on the day but our drummer man was pinged (remember the pingdemic? It seems a lifetime ago doesn't it?) so the gig didn't happen - instead I spent the evening in the hallowed surroundings of The Dolphin in Uxbridge, mostly in the garden, occasionally somewhere near the bar and had a splendid if rather difficult to remember time. I wonder where we'll all be in July this year? I wonder if we'll be anywhere, if you know what I mean?

And you thought that I'd stopped the philosophical ramblings...

Talking of The Slogans - we managed to play a few shows this year including one particularly memorable one at The Uxbridge Christmas Market earlier this month. Yes that's right, an outdoor show in December. And yes, it was as cold as you would think it would be, yes the power went on and off as you would expect it to and yes, it was really good fun. We've also had more than a few gigs cancelled, which seems to be a familiar tale for most bands these days. I've also been depping in The Good Old Boys as guitarist Simon hasn't been well - again we've played a few shows, had a few cancelled... see what I mean? One can only wonder when or indeed how this situation will change. 

I mentioned in the last missive that I had recorded some guitar parts at home using GarageBand for an Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants single; this was due out early this year but somewhat inevitably got caught in a Brexit-induced vinyl pressing backlog and so didn't actually emerge until the Summer. Has anything actually improved as a result of Britain leaving the EU? No, I didn't think so either... nevertheless, 'State Of Grace' is available here from Time & Matter Records even as we speak. We only managed to play one show this year (at The HRH Punk Festival in Sheffield back in October since you were wondering) but it was a great gig at an excellent event - there are plans to return to both the studio and the stage next year, and hopefully we will. 

Vinyl copies of the 'ElectrAcoustiC' album by Ruts D.C. were also delayed thanks to the afore-mentioned backlog, eventually being delivered nearly a year after the CD became available. The Sunday before Christmas I played an afternoon show at The Cavern in Raynes Park with The Good Old Boys then made my way up to The 229 Club in Great Portland Street where Theatre Of Hate were playing; there I met Dave and Segs backstage (the things I write here eh? Well, the things I used to write here... I really must do this more often mustn't I?) and signed over 300 albums, all of which had either been pre-ordered or were purchased in the next couple of days. A genuinely exciting day - it would be good to have more like that... mind you, I suppose that might have caught Coronavirus then... ooh!

So - what next? 

Well in a time that could politely be described as 'uncertain' one thing that even I could never have predicted is actually going to happen - nearly 30 years after we first broke up there is to be an official album release by The Price, something that we didn't manage to achieve during our original existence. Even typing it here feels weird... but, incredibly, it's true. 'No Justice?' is out early next year on Cadiz Music - to quote the soon-to-appear press release it contains 19 tracks recorded between 1988 and 1993, and even though I say so myself it sounds bloomin' great. More news to follow on the band's Facebook page via the link above, my Facebook page and no doubt some other places too... maybe even here...

Theoretically Ruts D.C. are supporting The Stranglers in January and February - this is the third attempt at The Final Full U.K. Tour, and with further restrictions looming as I type this it's difficult to say whether it will take place this time either. We have German shows planned for later in the year, along with various others in the pipeline, and we'd also like to make a new album - but who knows what will happen? It's interesting isn't it - we've never really known what will happen in life, but these days it almost feels as though we did. If I put something like 'we're touring with The Stranglers' here then the chances were very good that we that we would indeed tour with The Stranglers. Those days seem a very long time ago now don't they?

Hmm. Even I thought that I'd stopped the philosophical ramblings... mind you, it's been good to be back blogging, even if I am running on paracetamol and, well, not much else at the moment.

See you all in 2022!

'Most peculiar mama...'

I've worn glasses for almost as long as I can remember. I've worn them in public for a little bit less time than that - I've never considered myself to be particularly vain person, but as a terminally shy adolescent who already feared that the chances of any young lady being even vaguely interested in talking to him were, to coin a phrase, less than zero I rather foolishly decided that the addition of a piece of scaffolding to my acne-ridden features was unlikely to improve matters. Ironically when I started going to watch bands (or maybe specifically to watch the guitarists in bands) I realised that wearing a pair of specs would greatly enhance my enjoyment of the performance. I also realised that it stopped me squinting and/or gawping aimlessly every time I tried to look at anything that was more than a couple of feet away from me, which, oddly enough, meant that I became a little more attractive to young ladies. Good news all round then - although it must be said that the words 'a little' are quite significant in that last sentence.
So - why am I telling you this? Well every so often I realise that my eyes have changed - you tend to assume that they've got worse, but I believe that this isn't always the case, especially as you get older - and when this happens I generally make an appointment to have my eyes tested by an optician. This usually results in them relieving me of several hundred pounds, followed by me spending a couple of years wondering if my new glasses really are better than my old ones. Then the whole process is repeated. Simple eh? 
But what I don't do is test my eyes by jumping in the car and driving 30 miles. And then driving back again. You'd have to be a complete clown to even consider doing that now wouldn't you? Especially if you'd previously driven over 250 miles anyway?
I've never met Dominic Cummings, and, at the risk of stating the obvious, I can't imagine that I ever will. I'm sure suits us both just fine. Have you heard the term 'don't judge a book by it's cover'? Of course you have. Well, just for a laugh, have a look at a picture or even better some film of Mr. Cummings - how do you think he looks? Interesting isn't it? As I'm in what passes for a good mood in my little life I'll be polite and say that he looks to me to be an odious little creep, which you might argue makes him ideally suited to be the Chief Advisor to Boris Johnson. You remember Boris Johnson don't you? You don't see much of him these days, but he's that lying toff who, bafflingly, is currently The Prime Minister of Great Britain. Now, leaving aside the fact that anywhere that has someone who would struggle to get a job on a television game show in charge of it shouldn't really use the word 'Great' in it's name, the most obvious course of action here would be for the Prime Minister to get a new Chief Advisor - after all, in these times of Coronavirus lockdown it's probably a good idea to have someone who can be trusted to stay on the right side of the law of the land giving you a helping hand. But no - apparently a much better idea is to make a rare appearance to defend said advisor's action, and then let said advisor sit in your back garden defending himself and his aforementioned actions. That's much better isn't it?
Hmm... is it me or have I missed something here? Rather like Mr. C appears to have missed the bit in The Highway Code where it says that you shouldn't drive a motor car if you haven't got good enough eyesight - after all, as he himself put it, 'I believe that in all the circumstances I behaved reasonably and legally'? Or maybe he just wanted to contribute to his infamous 'herd immunity' directive by driving up and down the county spreading the virus far and wide - after all, it's at best unlikely that he didn't at least have to stop for petrol on the way... meanwhile as the vast majority us play by the rules domestic abuse and mental health problems rise as countless people have lost work and in many cases watched their businesses go to the brink of collapse, while others can't go to funerals for family members and loved ones. And this pillock thinks that what he's done here is justifiable? 

Enough of such nonsense - let's get back to the music. Ruts D.C. contributed a song - 'Kill The Pain' in case you were wondering - to the 'Vive Le Rockdown' online festival last weekend. Organised by Vive Le Rock magazine and raising funds for The Music Venues Trust it was a rip-roaring two-and-a-half hour roller coaster ride (I should write this stuff for a living shouldn't I?!?) with a splendid rendition of the Tom Petty classic 'Learning To Fly' by The Cockney Rejects probably the best track for me. You can watch the whole thing on the VLR Facebook page here if you like - we're 10 minutes from the end...

The '40 Years Of The Crack' album cover.
Pretty cool huh?

Ruts TV has gone from strength to strength since last we spoke - the show now goes out on the band's Facebook page (here!) every other Friday at 8 pm (although it's available to watch after that if you can't make it then) and it's featured all manner of interesting items over the last few weeks. Well I think that it has, and judging by the amount of positive comments I'm pleased to say that many people seem to agree with me. Mind you, it didn't exactly go according to plan last night, when Episode 6 was blocked by Facebook as Universal Music objected to the promotional video for 'Something That I Said' by The Ruts being featured. Bah! 
Our live album from last year's '40 Years Of The Crack' tour is out next month - if only we could play some shows to promote it - and there's also a new band t-shirt which makes a contribution to both The Music Venues Trust and The NHS available to order here if you fancy treating yourself.

Of course we've also all received the very sad news that Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers has died. We've toured with the band several times over the last few years, and while I can't pretend to have known Dave well I've always found him to be friendly and cheerful whenever we've spoken. He leaves behind a enormous body of work - it's very difficult to be a distinctive-sounding keyboard player, but Dave certainly was that and a whole lot more. He'll be greatly missed by the band's millions of fans worldwide, and by everyone who knew him personally and could call him a friend.

And sadly The Rebellion Festival has joined the 'postponed-until-next-year' list - I don't mind admitting that I had thought that it might have happened as scheduled in August but have to agree that they've made the correct decision. And we should have been on tour in America this week - that's been rescheduled for next May. Hopefully.

In these increasingly crazy days it's perhaps tempting to look back to simpler times... in the Eighties and Nineties I played in a band called The Price. Don't worry if you haven't heard if them, you're not alone.... our fifth member/roadie/referee Eastberg (it would take to long to explain the name!) is currently attempting to compile a gig list (if you came to a show and you know the date, or even better have a ticket or poster advertising it then all contributions are most welcome!) and is also running a band Facebook page, which has recently featured photos from our East German tour in May 1990 among other delights. If you'd like to see these pictures and much more besides then click here - and was it really 30 years ago? Yes, incredibly, it was. Three decades! Amazing.

Time is funny stuff isn't it? Well, it certainly is at the moment...

'Strange days indeed...'

So then.

‘We never bothered to scream,
when your mask went on...’

Coronavirus. 
Pandemic.
Lockdown. 
Self isolation. 
Social distancing. 

How is it all going for you?

I was on the phone to a musician mate of mine the other day who during the course of our conversation said something that has come back to me more than a few times lately - 'the thing is Leigh, people like you and me are probably a bit more used to self isolation than most people are'.

He's not wrong.

I think that a lot of people are finding out some, shall we say, 'interesting' things about themselves at the moment - from the vacuous airhead whining of useless 'celebrities' stranded in their mansions with only a swimming pool or two to amuse them, to the pub bore (remember pubs?!?) who doesn't complain quite so loudly about the lady that lives opposite who 'shouldn't even be in this country' as he's realised that nurses do a little bit more than just leave for work at irregular hours, the times they are a-changing. Indeed, the times they have a-changed. Will they ever change back again? Who knows - apparently a significant percentage of the country actually prefer the current lifestyle to what up until this point in proceedings has been considered to be 'normal'. As I say, times have changed.

Obviously these are not good times to be a musician that relies primarily on live performance for income. Ruts D.C. 'should' be out on our first acoustic tour as I type this - it's been rescheduled for August as discussed in the last blog post, which I have a horrible feeling may be proved to be a rather optimistic piece of planning. Attempts to move this year's Punk Rock Bowling Festival to the Autumn have sadly proved impossible so it'll be happening next May, as will our projected visit to the USA. We're touring Britain with The Stranglers in October and November before a series of European shows, and there are other gigs coming in - well, that's the plan anyway. Will any of it happen? No one knows.  

But we've not been idle. Our live album '40 Years Of The Crack' is due for release in June, and to this end a promotional film aired on the band's Facebook page a couple of Fridays ago. It was followed by a live Q and A session with Segs, all of which constituted the (ahem!) 'launch' of Ruts TV - the plan is for this to feature band footage (much of it previously unseen) alongside items recorded by us during lockdown. An ambitious idea in many ways - and if ever there was a time where plans change then this is it - but to this end I've been attempting to get to grips with Garageband (I've messed around with it in the past but didn't learn it 'properly, if you know what I mean) with a view to recording items for broadcast, and also to send new song ideas over to Dave and Segs and indeed to receive ideas from them. In the meantime episode 2 of Ruts TV featured previously unseen interview and live footage from The Fleece in Bristol a few years ago, while tomorrow night's show will feature The Ruts on the Belgian television show 'Follies' in 1980. Excellent!

And Alvin Gibbs and The Disobedient Servants have some new music due for release - the 'History' EP (actually 2 x 7" singles - how cool is that?!?) was recorded last year and features four new songs including one written and sung by your humble narrator. Yes, that's right - sung. I'm not sure how this happened either... if I could re-record every note of it then I would but, hey, that's just me being self-critical. Hopefully. Available from Time and Matter Records now!

Right - time to get on with... er, something or other... well, you know what it's like at the moment...

'Nobody told me there'd be days like these...'

Well I don't know about you (obviously!) but I seem to have rather more time on my hands than I was expecting to have at the moment. Maybe you have too? So what better time to (a) write one of those blog postings that I keep saying that I must get around to writing, and (b) play a game of Spot The Difference. Well, why not eh?



Here are two posters - the one on the left is for the first ever acoustic tour by (ahem!) up-and-coming young London dub rock band Ruts D.C., while the one on the right is for The Punk Rock Bowling Festival, which takes place every May in no lesser location than Las Vegas, USA. 






Now here are two more posters - the one on the left is once again for the first ever acoustic tour by (ahem!) up-and-coming young London dub rock band Ruts D.C., while the one on the right is once again for The Punk Rock Bowling Festival, which takes place every May in no lesser location than Las Vegas, USA.






So can you - yes, YOU! - spot the difference between them? Tricky isn't it?

Actually it's not very tricky at all is it? I must make the next competition more difficult...

I first started this blog all those years ago as an attempt to become more computer literate, to improve my typing skills - which if I remember rightly were pretty much non-existent at the time - and because I thought that it might be an interesting thing to do, not least as it gave me a way of documenting my increasingly unusual (and often rather obscure) attempts to play the guitar for a living. I gave it the impulsive title 'Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars' without very much thought; I've often wondered if I should change it - maybe one day I will - but it's been hard enough to find the time and if I'm honest the inclination to contribute to it over the last few years, let alone to wonder whether it's name should change. As previously discussed I tend to use Facebook for music-related stuff these days, and as a result the blog feels a little bit like something from another time in my life - which I suppose in many ways it is. Looking back through it I don't really know how I found the time to write as much as I did in the early days, although maybe a more interesting question is to consider what I used to do with all those thoughts before I started writing them down here... but if ever there was a Mad World it's the one that we have 'suddenly' found ourselves in now.

Coronavirus. Was there ever a time when it wasn't the most used word in the English language? It's hard to remember isn't it? And how about terms like 'self-isolating' and 'social distancing'? From people saying things like 'I don't know what all the fuss is about, it's only a cold' to the same folk crossing the road with a look of abject terror on their face if they see anyone within several yards of them has taken a few weeks, but it's certainly happened. As I write this all restaurants, pubs and clubs are closed and gatherings are limited to two people - that's certainly something that I never thought that I'd ever type! All but non-essential shops are closed, the streets are as empty as they are on Christmas Day - well, they certainly are around these parts - and with many people working from home the World seems a very different place to the one we all now only dimly remember from just a couple of weeks or so ago. Supermarket shelves are empty, people are fighting over bottles of hand sanitiser and toilet rolls are suddenly the rarest thing on Earth. I was in the Post Office around the corner from me the other day, and when one of the lads behind the counter mentioned that they would be receiving a delivery later in the day I heard a voice from behind me say 'I'll 'ave 200 of 'em'. It was a giant, not-particularly friendly-looking man, and he wasn't smiling - now that's an upset stomach... all this panic buying has of course resulted in shortages of all sorts of things, which isn't too clever from the point of view of, say, an NHS worker who can only visit shops at a certain time of day due to shift commitments, or an unemployed or elderly person with limited financial resources at certain times of the month. Still, I'm sure that doesn't bother Mr. 200 Toilet Rolls, or indeed any of the other blockheads who work on a similarly self-centred level to him.

As for me - all gigs are fairly obviously postponed or in some cases cancelled altogether, my work at Balcony Shirts is on hold and as a self-employed person I've long since stopped joking about bankruptcy. I began the last blog posting with the words 'as Ruts D.C. ready themselves for a return to showbusiness' - well, that seems a very long time ago now too. We've got things to do - there's a live album from last year's '40 Years Of The Crack' tour coming out soon, there are songs to write for a projected 2021 release (I do like a bit of unashamed optimism, don't you?!) and more, but who knows when we'll next be able to get together? We're looking at sending song ideas to each other via The Internet - time I finally learned how to work GarageBand properly then... we were due to be playing a Rock Against Racism show in Brighton this coming weekend with another one in Brixton early next month so these are now being rescheduled as are quite a few other shows. And we're once again accompanying The Stranglers around Britain on their 'Final Full U.K. Tour' in October and November - tickets are selling well, and surely we'll all be back to 'normal' by then? There are also dates for Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants and The Slogans that need changing - but when do we reschedule anything for? How long is our new Mad World going to be around for? And how much madder is it going to get? 

Hmm... the answers aren't there, but the questions most certainly are. 

Wherever you are, stay safe and stay cool. We'll meet again, don't know where don't know when - but I know we'll meet again, some sunny day...