Since the euphoria of Thursday evening (yeah, sorry for getting a bit carried away but, well, you know how it is...) The Upper Cut have played two very different shows, united by, for want of a better word, 'oddness'...
On Friday night we returned to Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace a little over a month since our first visit there. When we arrived the atmosphere seemed a bit strange, maybe more serious than last time - upon saying hello to the guv'nor he immediately began telling us not to play too loud. This never gets things off to a good start - joking aside it is very hard to play the type of music we play with conviction when you're worried about the guy in front on you telling you to turn it down every 90 seconds. Actually thinking about it, it's hard to play any type of music under those circumstances. As a result I found our first set to be probably the least enjoyable performance that I've given in absolutely ages. I found my mind wandering at one point to such an extent that I went completely wrong, and can't even recall which song it was in such was my disinterest. This has bothered me ever since - having spent much of the last blog posting blathering on about how lucky I am to do what I do I then spend part of my next gig with my mind somewhere else entirely and as a result play badly. Not good frankly. I went to the bar feeling very low indeed - whereupon three lads told me how great they thought we were sounding, and another chap came over to ask for some Rod Stewart, a lady requested some Free and Bad Company - yes, you've guessed it, the second set was a stormer with a full dancefloor and a great audience reaction. And at the end the guv'nor came over and told me that we were the best band that they'd ever had there, I was the best guitarist that he'd ever seen (!) and if he gave us more money would we play until 1am.
Sometimes I don't think that I will ever understand people.
Saturday it was time for our friend Simon the DJ's birthday bash, at The General Eliott in Uxbridge. Although I've been to quite a few gigs at the pub the band had not played there before - when we arrived (in the pouring rain!) Simon was still setting up his DJ equipment; although we were due to go on at 9.30 we eventually started a quarter of an hour late. Once again our first set wasn't without problems - Terry was suffering from a bad throat meaning that we had to be careful as to which songs we chose, and having had something of a bad hay fever day I suddenly found that couldn't hear out of my right ear. I often get earwax / sinus problems at this time of year, but halfway through a show is not a good time for them to develop! Once again I found myself approaching the bar at halftime with a long face - whereupon Simon played 'Roxette' by Dr. Feelgood and suddenly all was right in my little world. It doesn't take much sometimes does it? Our second set couldn't have been more different from the first - Terry's voice seemed to improve, I found a way to hear through not being able to hear (if you see what I mean!) and the band rose to the occasion to give a fine performance. That's better. And after we'd finished Simon was pressganged into singing 'Baby I Love You' with Terry on bass, Roger on drums and some of his young lady friends on backing vocals. 'Can you make it sound jangly?' said he as I handed him my Gibson SG - I didn't like to tell him that I wasn't really sure how it had sounded during our show so I wasn't much help to him now...
During the course of last Wednesday evening I had mentioned to Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes that I was intending to attend the open mic / jam session on Sunday at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge; as we talked about it he surprised me by expressing an interest in coming along and maybe even playing; I then surprised myself by expressing an interest in singing - yes, singing - a song or two with him... so it was then that I found myself on stage with him and Upper cut bassman Terry playing and indeed singing 'Around And Around' and 'Pills'. Now that's something that I didn't think that would ever type! I must admit that I really enjoyed it - I can't see myself fronting a band but it just goes to show what you can do if you try. And I don't think that the chap who told me that he really liked the band (!) and asked how long we'd been playing together was taking the mickey?
And last night I found myself in what for me were the unfamiliar surroundings of Madame Jo Jo's in Soho for the first in a series of 12 Monday club nights being hosted by The Duel. Broadly speaking the nights will feature reggae and punk (not sure about calling it 'Reggie' though!) and judging by the first night it's going to go very well. Dave and Segs from Ruts D.C. were Dj-ing, The Duel played a great set, and people were still arriving as I was leaving - clearly the night was young, although sadly I'm not and I had decided to leave early enough to get a train home. Ooh, I really do sound old don't I?
Showing posts with label Crown and Treaty Uxbridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crown and Treaty Uxbridge. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
'What's that funny noise Pete? And it smells like something's burning...'
I have just - just! - returned from RnR Studios in Uxbridge where myself and my good friend Pete have spent a couple of hours comparing my new-ish Marshall Vintage Modern Combo with his old Fender Twin. Well that was the plan anyway; after only a few minutes of splendidly noisy noise a valve in mine blew. Bugger! I called Roger the amplifier repair man who suggested that (a) even though it would still work it probably wasn't a good idea to continue using the amplifier with a valve down, and (b) if I dropped it round to him he'd put a new matched pair of valves in as well as re-biasing the amp and checking it over generally. More expense! Oh well - these things happen... and at least up until that point it'd sounded great. Still we carried on using Pete's amp as I also wanted to try a few things with my pedalboard - which promptly made a funny noise and stopped working. I think the power supply has gone wrong. Yet more expense! Do you ever get the feeling that it's not going to be your day?
At least things went a bit more smoothly last Friday when I depped with The Repertoire Dogs (whose regular guitarist Mick Ralphs was unavailable) at Nettlebed Village Hall. No I didn't know where it was either... Nick's at the helm on vocals, Bob's on drums, Dick's on bass, Simon's on guitar and Freya and Ann are on backing (and fairly frequent lead) vocals - we all got there early enough for a reasonably long soundcheck which allowed us to play through a few songs and check a few beginnings, middles and endings. This stood us in good stead come showtime as a fair-sized audience had gathered to witness our efforts. They were an energetic bunch, in the mood for dancing from the word go and making a lot of noise throughout our performance. A good and very enjoyable evening.
Saturday Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge. The afore-mentioned Pete had depped for me in the band the night before and joined us for a few songs at this show, which began with a surprisingly heavy version of 'Green Onions' and ended well after time with a raucous 'Born To Run'. The band is sounding better and better every time we play (which doesn't always happen in groups let me tell you!) and with more songs being added to the show on a regular basis and gigs coming in throughout the rest of the year this is definitely a good band to be part of. We've got three gigs this coming weekend - that's nearly a tour! And there's also a Back To Zero rehearsal to fit in on Sunday - busy times...
Sunday evening I ventured down to The Crown And Treaty in Uxbridge for their once-a-month open mic / jam night. As previously discussed I find myself at quite a few of these gatherings these days, and this one certainly seems to be growing in popularity. Overall I think this is a good thing as it gives people who don't usually get a chance to play or sing on a stage an opportunity to do so, although inevitably the quality of performance can vary dramatically. And there are quite a few mad moments here and there too - I really must write a blog piece about it all sometime soon... anyway I played bass with Simon the DJ (wielding a splendid Rickenbacker guitar) and my old drumming mate Grant on 'Baby I Love You' and 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' and jolly good fun it was too. (Which reminds me - The Upper Cut are playing at Simon's birthday bash on July 27th at The General Eliott in Uxbridge which should be a good night, and they're also playing at The Dolphin on July 19th, which is my birthday gig. If you're in the area it'd be good to see you!)
I'm off to Brighton tomorrow to try some effect pedals. Mind you, I'm not sure that I can afford to buy them now...
At least things went a bit more smoothly last Friday when I depped with The Repertoire Dogs (whose regular guitarist Mick Ralphs was unavailable) at Nettlebed Village Hall. No I didn't know where it was either... Nick's at the helm on vocals, Bob's on drums, Dick's on bass, Simon's on guitar and Freya and Ann are on backing (and fairly frequent lead) vocals - we all got there early enough for a reasonably long soundcheck which allowed us to play through a few songs and check a few beginnings, middles and endings. This stood us in good stead come showtime as a fair-sized audience had gathered to witness our efforts. They were an energetic bunch, in the mood for dancing from the word go and making a lot of noise throughout our performance. A good and very enjoyable evening.
Saturday Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge. The afore-mentioned Pete had depped for me in the band the night before and joined us for a few songs at this show, which began with a surprisingly heavy version of 'Green Onions' and ended well after time with a raucous 'Born To Run'. The band is sounding better and better every time we play (which doesn't always happen in groups let me tell you!) and with more songs being added to the show on a regular basis and gigs coming in throughout the rest of the year this is definitely a good band to be part of. We've got three gigs this coming weekend - that's nearly a tour! And there's also a Back To Zero rehearsal to fit in on Sunday - busy times...
Sunday evening I ventured down to The Crown And Treaty in Uxbridge for their once-a-month open mic / jam night. As previously discussed I find myself at quite a few of these gatherings these days, and this one certainly seems to be growing in popularity. Overall I think this is a good thing as it gives people who don't usually get a chance to play or sing on a stage an opportunity to do so, although inevitably the quality of performance can vary dramatically. And there are quite a few mad moments here and there too - I really must write a blog piece about it all sometime soon... anyway I played bass with Simon the DJ (wielding a splendid Rickenbacker guitar) and my old drumming mate Grant on 'Baby I Love You' and 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' and jolly good fun it was too. (Which reminds me - The Upper Cut are playing at Simon's birthday bash on July 27th at The General Eliott in Uxbridge which should be a good night, and they're also playing at The Dolphin on July 19th, which is my birthday gig. If you're in the area it'd be good to see you!)
I'm off to Brighton tomorrow to try some effect pedals. Mind you, I'm not sure that I can afford to buy them now...
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
You upset me baby
It's been something of a 'bits-and-pieces-week' since last we spoke...
The last time Ruts D.C. visited The Music Complex in Deptford was to rehearse for last month's show at The Underworld in Camden; rather than busy ourselves with serious work as our 'big London gig' was on the immediate horizon we chose to attempt most if not all of our set in a rockabilly style before going to the pub opposite. Last Tuesday's gathering was a bit different, as with no gigs for a while we decided to get together to look at some other songs from the band's back catalogue as well as trying out some ideas for new numbers. Well that was the plan - what actually happened was that decided to play a few songs from our set in the style of The Upsetters (well, we'd jammed a few chords that we thought sounded a bit like them and then found ourselves playing 'West One (Shine On Me)' in a similar way. Strange but true. Incidentally if you follow this link you'll see the afore-mentioned song from our Southampton show a few weeks ago - watch the chap in front of me during the guitar solo and you'll see him making a well-known gesture at me throughout. I didn't think it was that bad!) before... no, not going to the pub (we did that after the session!) but actually getting down to what we were there for. Many an-idea was tried, arrangements were altered, and we all felt that progress was made. Another similar session is planned for the not-too-distant future - more news as and when I have it, as they say.
Well so far so good - except that by the time I got home I wasn't feeling too well. We'd only had a couple of drinks (honest!) so that wasn't the cause; however after an early night I woke up the next day feeling as though I hadn't been to sleep, all heavy limbs and heavier head. I managed to stumble through a day at Balcony Shirts before going home and falling asleep for an hour-and-a-bit. Rock'n'roll eh? Still I felt a bit better so made it back into Uxbridge to meet Scott from the shop at Harris + Hoole where he was due to play a short acoustic set with your humble narrator joining him for a couple of songs. When I got there a chap who's name escapes me (Sorry! But I'd not been well!) was playing some difficult sounding jazz piano (I'm not entirely sure that there's any easy sounding jazz piano, but that's another story. Mind you, what do I know?!?) which sounded very appropriate in the context of the venue and indeed the evening. Next up was John Napier who I first met back in the 1980s when his band Hector's House played a few shows with The Price. I always thought that he wrote good songs back then and if his set here was anything to go by he still does. Scott then played a couple of songs before asking me to join him for 'Ain't No Pleasing You' and 'Taarabt's Too Good For You', both of which went well not least considering that the extent of our rehearsal was to decide on keys and talk through the songs when I arrived at the coffee shop. It could all have gone horribly wrong but thankfully it didn't. Last on was R.W. Hedges, a good friend of Scott's who did very well in the Mojo magazine 'New Voice' competition a couple of years ago. He'd put the evening together and finished proceedings very well. All in all a highly enjoyable evening in an excellent venue - let's hope they put more musical events on there in the future.
Fridy evening saw The Upper Cut return to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham for the first time in quite a while. I took the opportunity to try out my newly-acquired Marshall combo as mentioned in these hallowed pages last week - I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to get to grips with it during the week (I've not been well you know!) but overall I think I've made a good purchase as it certainly sounded good where I was standing. It's definitely a 'rockier' sounding amplifier than my Fender (as you would expect) and to be honest it might be a bit much for The Upper Cut but I might give it another go this weekend (we're at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace this coming Friday) and see how it sounds. The show was a good one too, with everyone playing well and ending with Sue the landlady offering us money to play for longer. This happened in Colnbrook last month too - maybe we should just charge more and then play for longer?
After a Saturday in the shop (not too busy but busy enough) I had what felt like my first Saturday night off in ages - at last a chance to catch up with things that need doing and maybe even have an early night given that I'd not been feeling well earlier in the week... obviously I didn't do anything of the sort as I went to The Crown And Treaty to see punk covers band No Lip. They feature my old mate Pete Bradshaw on guitar (back in the day he was known to many as 'Suts' after attempting to adopt the stage name Peter Sutcliffe - they were odd times...) and did a pretty good job of summoning up the spirit of '77. And Pete and myself did a pretty good job of drinking far too many drinks after the show. Well - Saturday night out and all that...
And last night it was back to The Three Wishes in Edgware for the the Monday night jam session. An enjoyable evening all round, and it's a regular event that's well worth a visit - you can find their Facebook page here if you're interested. I'm still a bit surprised that I like it as much as I do...
And if you're in the Hayes area this Saturday evening Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have a short notice gig at The Wishing Well (it's on the Uxbridge Road opposite the police station - you can do your own 'that'll be handy for when the fight breaks out'-type punchlines if you like...) which should be an interesting evening, not least because they've only just started putting bands on there. Let's hope there's an audience!
The last time Ruts D.C. visited The Music Complex in Deptford was to rehearse for last month's show at The Underworld in Camden; rather than busy ourselves with serious work as our 'big London gig' was on the immediate horizon we chose to attempt most if not all of our set in a rockabilly style before going to the pub opposite. Last Tuesday's gathering was a bit different, as with no gigs for a while we decided to get together to look at some other songs from the band's back catalogue as well as trying out some ideas for new numbers. Well that was the plan - what actually happened was that decided to play a few songs from our set in the style of The Upsetters (well, we'd jammed a few chords that we thought sounded a bit like them and then found ourselves playing 'West One (Shine On Me)' in a similar way. Strange but true. Incidentally if you follow this link you'll see the afore-mentioned song from our Southampton show a few weeks ago - watch the chap in front of me during the guitar solo and you'll see him making a well-known gesture at me throughout. I didn't think it was that bad!) before... no, not going to the pub (we did that after the session!) but actually getting down to what we were there for. Many an-idea was tried, arrangements were altered, and we all felt that progress was made. Another similar session is planned for the not-too-distant future - more news as and when I have it, as they say.
Well so far so good - except that by the time I got home I wasn't feeling too well. We'd only had a couple of drinks (honest!) so that wasn't the cause; however after an early night I woke up the next day feeling as though I hadn't been to sleep, all heavy limbs and heavier head. I managed to stumble through a day at Balcony Shirts before going home and falling asleep for an hour-and-a-bit. Rock'n'roll eh? Still I felt a bit better so made it back into Uxbridge to meet Scott from the shop at Harris + Hoole where he was due to play a short acoustic set with your humble narrator joining him for a couple of songs. When I got there a chap who's name escapes me (Sorry! But I'd not been well!) was playing some difficult sounding jazz piano (I'm not entirely sure that there's any easy sounding jazz piano, but that's another story. Mind you, what do I know?!?) which sounded very appropriate in the context of the venue and indeed the evening. Next up was John Napier who I first met back in the 1980s when his band Hector's House played a few shows with The Price. I always thought that he wrote good songs back then and if his set here was anything to go by he still does. Scott then played a couple of songs before asking me to join him for 'Ain't No Pleasing You' and 'Taarabt's Too Good For You', both of which went well not least considering that the extent of our rehearsal was to decide on keys and talk through the songs when I arrived at the coffee shop. It could all have gone horribly wrong but thankfully it didn't. Last on was R.W. Hedges, a good friend of Scott's who did very well in the Mojo magazine 'New Voice' competition a couple of years ago. He'd put the evening together and finished proceedings very well. All in all a highly enjoyable evening in an excellent venue - let's hope they put more musical events on there in the future.
Fridy evening saw The Upper Cut return to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham for the first time in quite a while. I took the opportunity to try out my newly-acquired Marshall combo as mentioned in these hallowed pages last week - I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to get to grips with it during the week (I've not been well you know!) but overall I think I've made a good purchase as it certainly sounded good where I was standing. It's definitely a 'rockier' sounding amplifier than my Fender (as you would expect) and to be honest it might be a bit much for The Upper Cut but I might give it another go this weekend (we're at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace this coming Friday) and see how it sounds. The show was a good one too, with everyone playing well and ending with Sue the landlady offering us money to play for longer. This happened in Colnbrook last month too - maybe we should just charge more and then play for longer?
After a Saturday in the shop (not too busy but busy enough) I had what felt like my first Saturday night off in ages - at last a chance to catch up with things that need doing and maybe even have an early night given that I'd not been feeling well earlier in the week... obviously I didn't do anything of the sort as I went to The Crown And Treaty to see punk covers band No Lip. They feature my old mate Pete Bradshaw on guitar (back in the day he was known to many as 'Suts' after attempting to adopt the stage name Peter Sutcliffe - they were odd times...) and did a pretty good job of summoning up the spirit of '77. And Pete and myself did a pretty good job of drinking far too many drinks after the show. Well - Saturday night out and all that...
And last night it was back to The Three Wishes in Edgware for the the Monday night jam session. An enjoyable evening all round, and it's a regular event that's well worth a visit - you can find their Facebook page here if you're interested. I'm still a bit surprised that I like it as much as I do...
And if you're in the Hayes area this Saturday evening Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have a short notice gig at The Wishing Well (it's on the Uxbridge Road opposite the police station - you can do your own 'that'll be handy for when the fight breaks out'-type punchlines if you like...) which should be an interesting evening, not least because they've only just started putting bands on there. Let's hope there's an audience!
Monday, May 20, 2013
Who needs a setlist anyway?
As the current burst of Ruts D.C. activity comes to an end (shame! - although there are things in the pipeline for later this year...) it's time for my first corporate show for some time, and it's also my first show with Utter Madness since the New Year's Eve-before-last's extravaganza in Cardiff. This one took place on Wednesday night at The Metropole Hotel in Birmingham which is part of The N.E.C. complex; this gave me chance to boyishly (some might say 'childishly') tell anyone that would listen that I was 'playing at The N.E.C.' - well, I was, sort of... anyway according to my wristband (they wouldn't let me into the gig without it) we were playing at the 'Security & Fire Installer Live Party!' which I think you'll agree is an interesting idea for a social gathering. Also on the bill were Joe Stilgoe (his Dad is Richard Stilgoe) The RPJ Band (a.k.a. The Rick Parfitt Junior Band - the lead singer's Dad is, you've guessed it, Rick Parfitt from Status Quo) and The It Girls (sorry, I don't know if any of their Dads are famous - maybe I should have asked?) and we were due to play an hour set in the middle of the evening. Almost immediately
that was cut to 50 minutes, and by the time we went on at a quarter to nine we were only obliged to play a 40 minute show. Given that we hadn't played together for nearly a year-and-a-half that was probably not a bad thing; add in the fact that surrogate Suggs Tony hurt his back during our 4th song and it becomes something of a blessing. We managed to run through a few songs in the soundcheck - you've guessed it, they were all left out as the set got cut down - which helped us all get back into it, although sadly Jon the bass was absent due to work commitments. (He arrived at 7pm just as food was being served - good timing!) Overall our set went well enough, although as so often happens at these events most people in the hall hardly took a blind bit of notice of us. Oh well. And from what I saw of the other acts on the bill more-or-less the same fate befell them, although that said The It Girls somewhat inevitably got a bit more attention, at least for the first few minutes of their first appearance; I rather suspect that most of the observers lost interest when they realised that they were dancers and not strippers. It was that kind of evening.
It was a very different kind of evening on Friday when Ruts D.C. played at The Globe in Cardiff. As I got into the bus to leave Segs told me that Molara had a bad throat and so wasn't doing this show and was very unlikely to be with us the next night - we spent a fair bit of the journey talking through the set and working out what changes we might be obliged to make. The main sticking discussion concerned 'Jah War' - she sings the song in the set (and she does a very fine job as this clip shows) and after wondering which one of us might be up to the job (I rather wildly said that I'd have a go - fortunately I don't think anybody took me too seriously!) we decided to drop the song and replace it with 'Generations', a song that Segs recorded with Joe Strummer and Rat Scabies for a benefit album and one that we played as an encore at last weekend's Camden show. We also elected to drop the second section of 'One Step' which has evolved into 'Warning' which again Molara sings (and this clip once again shows how well she sings it - not much chance of me getting near to that!) Other than that there weren't too many changes to make other than for your humble narrator to join in on the choruses a bit more than usual...
We arrived at the venue getting on for an hour late - not an ideal situation but unavoidable due to heavy traffic. There were three other bands on the bill so we soundchecked as quickly as we could to give them time to set up. A good sized crowd was expected and the venue was filling up by the time The Phucks (nice name!?!) took to the stage. They were an agreeably noisy bunch that didn't take themselves too seriously, whereas Anonamus Iconaclass were an altogether subtler proposition who reminded me a bit of early Dire Straits (i.e. when they were good... no really they were... well, quite good anyway!) Main support band The Sporadics began their set by describing themselves as delivering 'a bit of ska, a bit of punk, a bit of politics' which turned out to be a very accurate description. They were also very good.
!0.45pm and it's our turn. The place is packed and anticipation is high - I'd met Ziggy and John of Death Or Glory Promotions (they put on our Newport and Bristol shows back in March) before the show, both of whom had said that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing us. They weren't wrong as the place went crazy from the first song. It was interesting how Molara's absence seemed to change the dynamic of the band - it all felt a lot rockier, even a bit more 'laddish' than it normally does. That said we played well, and although we certainly missed her vocals on many occasions the show caused an extraordinary reaction from the audience, with stage diving, crowd surfing and more - I could have done without getting covered in beer by an over-exuberant chap down the front but to be honest the show was so enjoyable that it didn't really bother me too much. As I say, a very different show to the one on Wednesday.
After the show it was back to the hotel where the bar was still open and the mood was good, right up until the moment that Mark the driver said something like 'see you at nine in the morning' - any chance of oversleeping was removed when the smoke alarm went off before 8 o'clock; I was sharing the room was Seamus and we assumed that only the one in our room went off but it seems that it happened to everybody else too. Lack of traffic meant we got to The Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire around 40 minutes ahead of our projected 1pm arrival time - we had to get there early to get passes and wristbands - which I guess is better than getting there 40 minutes late, although I must admit I could have done with the extra sleep. (I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness when I heard Segs suggest that there should be a Goth catering company called Dark Satanic Meals...) In no time at all food passes are being handed out (vegetarian lasagne - oh yes!) and Citizen Fish are taking to the stage - I'd like to have seen more of their set but missed most of it as we were loading our equipment in but what I did see was very good indeed. Meanwhile we're allocated
our dressing room (maybe that should be 'dressing portacabin') where the rider provided much amusement - there may not have been much food but there certainly was a large amount of alcohol... we were playing a 45 minutes set, and since we'd played for an hour-and-a-half the night before we were able to leave out the 'Molara songs' and still have more than enough material for the show. I must say that I felt that our set went by in no time; it included an unusual version of 'Staring At The Rude Boys' which completely omitted the second verse and guitar solo - when I asked him afterwards Segs said that he'd simply forgotten to sing it! Overall it was a good show, not quite as euphoric as the night before but one that still had the audience calling for an encore that lack of time sadly didn't allow. Still it was a good show to finish this run of gigs with - we now haven't got anything booked until The Rebellion Festival in August although hopefully something will come in before then.
And yesterday evening I went to the open mic / jam session at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge where I played bass on 'Suffragette City' and 'Garageland' with old mates Grant and Steve, than went on to The Crown in Cowley for their acoustic session. It's strange - not long ago I'd never attended such gatherings but now I find them quite enjoyable. That said they do have more than a few odd moments - I really must write a blog piece about them sometime...
 |
| The ever-diminishing Utter Madness setlist, and a pint of lager. |
It was a very different kind of evening on Friday when Ruts D.C. played at The Globe in Cardiff. As I got into the bus to leave Segs told me that Molara had a bad throat and so wasn't doing this show and was very unlikely to be with us the next night - we spent a fair bit of the journey talking through the set and working out what changes we might be obliged to make. The main sticking discussion concerned 'Jah War' - she sings the song in the set (and she does a very fine job as this clip shows) and after wondering which one of us might be up to the job (I rather wildly said that I'd have a go - fortunately I don't think anybody took me too seriously!) we decided to drop the song and replace it with 'Generations', a song that Segs recorded with Joe Strummer and Rat Scabies for a benefit album and one that we played as an encore at last weekend's Camden show. We also elected to drop the second section of 'One Step' which has evolved into 'Warning' which again Molara sings (and this clip once again shows how well she sings it - not much chance of me getting near to that!) Other than that there weren't too many changes to make other than for your humble narrator to join in on the choruses a bit more than usual...
We arrived at the venue getting on for an hour late - not an ideal situation but unavoidable due to heavy traffic. There were three other bands on the bill so we soundchecked as quickly as we could to give them time to set up. A good sized crowd was expected and the venue was filling up by the time The Phucks (nice name!?!) took to the stage. They were an agreeably noisy bunch that didn't take themselves too seriously, whereas Anonamus Iconaclass were an altogether subtler proposition who reminded me a bit of early Dire Straits (i.e. when they were good... no really they were... well, quite good anyway!) Main support band The Sporadics began their set by describing themselves as delivering 'a bit of ska, a bit of punk, a bit of politics' which turned out to be a very accurate description. They were also very good.
!0.45pm and it's our turn. The place is packed and anticipation is high - I'd met Ziggy and John of Death Or Glory Promotions (they put on our Newport and Bristol shows back in March) before the show, both of whom had said that a lot of people were looking forward to seeing us. They weren't wrong as the place went crazy from the first song. It was interesting how Molara's absence seemed to change the dynamic of the band - it all felt a lot rockier, even a bit more 'laddish' than it normally does. That said we played well, and although we certainly missed her vocals on many occasions the show caused an extraordinary reaction from the audience, with stage diving, crowd surfing and more - I could have done without getting covered in beer by an over-exuberant chap down the front but to be honest the show was so enjoyable that it didn't really bother me too much. As I say, a very different show to the one on Wednesday.
After the show it was back to the hotel where the bar was still open and the mood was good, right up until the moment that Mark the driver said something like 'see you at nine in the morning' - any chance of oversleeping was removed when the smoke alarm went off before 8 o'clock; I was sharing the room was Seamus and we assumed that only the one in our room went off but it seems that it happened to everybody else too. Lack of traffic meant we got to The Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire around 40 minutes ahead of our projected 1pm arrival time - we had to get there early to get passes and wristbands - which I guess is better than getting there 40 minutes late, although I must admit I could have done with the extra sleep. (I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness when I heard Segs suggest that there should be a Goth catering company called Dark Satanic Meals...) In no time at all food passes are being handed out (vegetarian lasagne - oh yes!) and Citizen Fish are taking to the stage - I'd like to have seen more of their set but missed most of it as we were loading our equipment in but what I did see was very good indeed. Meanwhile we're allocated
 |
| Segs contemplates his options - 'Mints? Cashew nuts? Tortillas and Salsa dip? Or the fridge full of beer that's not in the picture?' |
And yesterday evening I went to the open mic / jam session at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge where I played bass on 'Suffragette City' and 'Garageland' with old mates Grant and Steve, than went on to The Crown in Cowley for their acoustic session. It's strange - not long ago I'd never attended such gatherings but now I find them quite enjoyable. That said they do have more than a few odd moments - I really must write a blog piece about them sometime...
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Early morning cold taxi
Another busy few days in mad-guitar-land - good! I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's also been a rather tiring few days, but it's better than having nothing to do...
In the wake of the Vive Le Rock article and album review there were two Ruts D.C. shows late last week. Thursday night saw the band visit The Brook in Southampton. Support came from Miss Jewels who sounded good to me although I did spend much of their set behind the merchandise stall and so didn't hear as much as them as I might have liked. I do remember them playing 'Heat Wave' though which is never a bad song to hear. For our show I used a Marshall Vintage Modern combo courtesy of my great friend Paul Cope (there were amplifiers supplied at the next night's show so I'd decided to travel light) which sounded absolutely fabulous to such an extent that I'm going to keep my eye out for a second hand one should I ever make any money (there's not much point in keeping an eye out then!) There's a review of the show on the excellent Aural Sculptors blog which also includes some video clips from the gig - overall it was a boisterous performance that saw the first appearance in the set for 'Something That I Said' (oh yes!) and a great reaction from the audience.
But if that was a boisterous performance then the next night's show at The Great British Alternative Music Festival at Butlins in Minehead took us to new heights of, er, boisterousness. (Is that a word?!?) We were on Centre Stage at 10 o'clock (which sadly meant that I missed Eddie And The Hot Rods who were on at Reds at the same time - bugger!) and played to what looked to me to be a capacity crowd of around 3,000. An extraordinary incident took place about halfway through our 60 minute set when a couple of girls decided to shout something (I'm still not sure what!) at Molara who reacted by putting them down in no uncertain terms. It seemed to spur the band on, and our set (which had already been going well) finished to scenes of audience hysteria that wouldn't have been out of place in 'A Hard Day's Night'. I went out to watch The Members (who featured the irrepressible Rat Scabies on drums) play after us and must have shaken hands with 100 people. Great stuff all round, only tempered by the fact that we had to leave at 7.30am on Saturday to get the van back to London in time for us to avoid paying for an entire weekend's hire...
I woke up just after 5pm. I'd got home sometime before midday, had a shower and then fell asleep. Rock 'n' roll eh? Still no time to worry about that now, as The Upper Cut are playing in Colnbrook at Ye Old George Inn and I've got to get my things (and indeed myself) together - except, er, we're not. I was just getting changed for the show when I received a text message from Terry the bass telling me that the gig was cancelled. I called him straight away - apparently someone who likes our band (don't laugh, there are a few of them around!) had called the venue for directions and no one there knew anything about the show. Bah! Oh well, at least we found out before we got there - that's fortunately only happened to me a couple of times and is rather depressing. The gig has already been rescheduled for Sunday 12th May (unusually we're on at 5pm) so it does look like a genuine mistake was made. Oh well!
Sunday saw the final Back To Zero rehearsal before this week's gigs - Sam, Andy, Squirrel and myself were joined by Craig on vocals (he's one of the singers from the first time around and is singing lead on three songs at Saturday's show) and Stuart on keyboards for a session at RnR Studios in Uxbridge. Things were sounding so good that we finished the session early - now that's something that doesn't happen very often! After dropping my gear back at home I made my way down to The Crown And Treaty for the latest open mic / jam night. Such was the general jollity of the occasion that I found myself at a similar gathering last night at The Three Wishes in Edgware. It's interesting - not that long ago I'd never attended such an event but I must admit that I've enjoyed the ones that I have been to. That said they almost always have the odd peculiar moment - but perhaps they're the best bits? Hmm... maybe more about that another time...
In the wake of the Vive Le Rock article and album review there were two Ruts D.C. shows late last week. Thursday night saw the band visit The Brook in Southampton. Support came from Miss Jewels who sounded good to me although I did spend much of their set behind the merchandise stall and so didn't hear as much as them as I might have liked. I do remember them playing 'Heat Wave' though which is never a bad song to hear. For our show I used a Marshall Vintage Modern combo courtesy of my great friend Paul Cope (there were amplifiers supplied at the next night's show so I'd decided to travel light) which sounded absolutely fabulous to such an extent that I'm going to keep my eye out for a second hand one should I ever make any money (there's not much point in keeping an eye out then!) There's a review of the show on the excellent Aural Sculptors blog which also includes some video clips from the gig - overall it was a boisterous performance that saw the first appearance in the set for 'Something That I Said' (oh yes!) and a great reaction from the audience.
But if that was a boisterous performance then the next night's show at The Great British Alternative Music Festival at Butlins in Minehead took us to new heights of, er, boisterousness. (Is that a word?!?) We were on Centre Stage at 10 o'clock (which sadly meant that I missed Eddie And The Hot Rods who were on at Reds at the same time - bugger!) and played to what looked to me to be a capacity crowd of around 3,000. An extraordinary incident took place about halfway through our 60 minute set when a couple of girls decided to shout something (I'm still not sure what!) at Molara who reacted by putting them down in no uncertain terms. It seemed to spur the band on, and our set (which had already been going well) finished to scenes of audience hysteria that wouldn't have been out of place in 'A Hard Day's Night'. I went out to watch The Members (who featured the irrepressible Rat Scabies on drums) play after us and must have shaken hands with 100 people. Great stuff all round, only tempered by the fact that we had to leave at 7.30am on Saturday to get the van back to London in time for us to avoid paying for an entire weekend's hire...
I woke up just after 5pm. I'd got home sometime before midday, had a shower and then fell asleep. Rock 'n' roll eh? Still no time to worry about that now, as The Upper Cut are playing in Colnbrook at Ye Old George Inn and I've got to get my things (and indeed myself) together - except, er, we're not. I was just getting changed for the show when I received a text message from Terry the bass telling me that the gig was cancelled. I called him straight away - apparently someone who likes our band (don't laugh, there are a few of them around!) had called the venue for directions and no one there knew anything about the show. Bah! Oh well, at least we found out before we got there - that's fortunately only happened to me a couple of times and is rather depressing. The gig has already been rescheduled for Sunday 12th May (unusually we're on at 5pm) so it does look like a genuine mistake was made. Oh well!
Sunday saw the final Back To Zero rehearsal before this week's gigs - Sam, Andy, Squirrel and myself were joined by Craig on vocals (he's one of the singers from the first time around and is singing lead on three songs at Saturday's show) and Stuart on keyboards for a session at RnR Studios in Uxbridge. Things were sounding so good that we finished the session early - now that's something that doesn't happen very often! After dropping my gear back at home I made my way down to The Crown And Treaty for the latest open mic / jam night. Such was the general jollity of the occasion that I found myself at a similar gathering last night at The Three Wishes in Edgware. It's interesting - not that long ago I'd never attended such an event but I must admit that I've enjoyed the ones that I have been to. That said they almost always have the odd peculiar moment - but perhaps they're the best bits? Hmm... maybe more about that another time...
Monday, April 01, 2013
Three's company
I have just got hold of the new 4-track EP by Eight Rounds Rapid - you know, the band that supported Wilko Johnson at his farewell shows last month and who feature his son Simon on razor-sharp guitar - and it is, to use a technical term, bloody great. The item in question can be purchased from their website here - I suppose it's unlikely that I for one would have heard of the band without the Wilko connection (and it's very difficult for me to keep that out of the equation) but I genuinely think that they're a very good band well worthy of attention. Have a listen and see what you think... and talking of the mighty Mr. Johnson he has announced that following a guest appearance with Madness last Friday he has played his last live show. It's weird isn't it - since the announcement that he is suffering from terminal cancer he's played some extraordinary farewell shows, and I bet I wasn't the only person kidding themselves that 'he'll be alright after all'? You can see him playing with the band here and read the story here - let's hope he enjoys his time in retirement.
Last Friday saw a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' at The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham. There was a certain amount of confusion as to whether the band would be playing or not - Dave and Segs were always going to be DJ-ing, The Cracked Actors and the Black Bombers were always going to be providing live musical entertainment, I was (ahem!) always going to be behind the merchandise table with CDs and T-shirts a-plenty, but it was never actually advertised as a Ruts D.C. gig... a few days earlier I had a phone conversation with Segs which went along the lines of 'so if we were to borrow some drums and amps and play as a three-piece, what songs could we play?' Good question!
My good friend Big Andy (who is!) joined me behind the merchandise desk while The Black Bombers (great garage-y rock'n'roll, definitely worth keeping an eye on) and The Cracked Actors (reggae/ska stuff, good but they played for a bit too long for me) did their stuff and Dave and Segs span some tracks in between times. We'd had a 'so what songs could we play then?' chat in the dressing room earlier in the evening and had come up with a rough plan - in the event we played (from memory so I might be wrong) 'Whatever We Do' / 'It Was Cold' / 'Backbiter' / 'Dope For Guns' / Staring At The Rude Boys' / 'In A Rut' and an encore of 'Babylon's Burning' to scenes of not-inconsiderable audience mayhem. Segs and Dave told a couple of very funny stories, I met Roland Link who wrote 'Kicking Up A Racket', a biography of Stiff Little Fingers and who is currently writing a book on The Ruts / Ruts D.C. and everyone I spoke to thought the evening was a great success. I think it was too!
On Saturday evening The Upper Cut journeyed to Welwyn Garden City to play at Grant and Rachel's joint 40th birthday party at Panshanger Golf Club. It had been a while since I'd played at an event such as this - I always remind myself that the live entertainment is only a small part of the evening (after all, it's the person or people that the party is being thrown for that should be the centre of attention don't you think?) and that for that reason it's not a 'gig' as such, more a gathering of family and friends that happens to have a disco and a live band. I suppose this is all to make me feel better when the band is all but ignored which is something that so often happens at nights like this - we weren't ignored this time but you could feel people wondering why we were there and why the disco wasn't happening all evening. That said we did get some nice comments from a few people and there was no outright hostility so overall it was definitely a 'more-pluses-that-minuses' sort of evening - and the band hadn't played for a while so it was good to all get together again.
Sunday morning rehearsals seem to be the way of things with Back To Zero, and this week it was my turn for a local one - Andy, Sam, Squirrel and myself amassed outside RnR Studios in Uxbridge at 10am and waited...and waited... and waited... eventually a sheepish lad turned up to let us in mumbling about 'forgetting to put the clocks forward'. Well, I guess we've all done it haven't we? Over the next four hours we ran through all the material that we're intending to play at next month's gigs, and I have to say that it's all sounding rather fine. There's often a moment in rehearsals when you stop sounding like a band of musicians and start sounding like a 'band' - ours was somewhere on Sunday morning. There's still a keyboard player to add and one of the original singers is going to guest on a few songs but as it stands at the moment Back To Zero are already sounding good to my ears.
After a couple of late nights and an early morning I spent a fair bit of Sunday afternoon asleep - I'm sure that didn't used to happen when I was younger? Hmmm... anyway at 8.30 in the evening I was using the magic of Skype to talk to Rich, Tom and Ian of Music Scene Investigation, and from 9-10pm we all participated in the latest podcast of said programme. We had three good songs to review this time (that's not always the case!) as you can tell if you watch the show here - I still think that song 3 was the best don't you?
Of course after being asleep half the day I was wide awake at 10 o'clock in the evening, which meant that I was able to pop down to The Crown And Treaty where an all-day festival of original (as opposed to cover) bands was taking place. When I got there a rather scary black metal band were playing (sadly I don't know their name - incidentally if they ever read this and think 'hang on a minute, we're not black metal' than I apologise profusely!) and I'd arranged to meet my old mates Pete (still recovering from last week's SLF gig) Grant and Sam with whom I cowered at the back (it wasn't much quieter there to be honest!) before moving nearer to the stage to watch Frowser. I last saw them many (15?) years ago when I remember them being very impressive although it wasn't really my type of thing - Grant is a bit of a fan, Sam is less convinced and Pete missed them as he decided he'd had enough to drink and went home. I must say he did look as though he'd been there a while... anyway they were still very impressive although they're still not really my type of thing, although it must be said that it's great to see them still playing and indeed writing new material. However I have to agree with Sam's analysis that you 'watch them and think they're great but you can't remember a single song in the morning'. He's correct - I think they are, and no you can't...
Happy Easter everyone! Yeah!
Last Friday saw a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' at The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham. There was a certain amount of confusion as to whether the band would be playing or not - Dave and Segs were always going to be DJ-ing, The Cracked Actors and the Black Bombers were always going to be providing live musical entertainment, I was (ahem!) always going to be behind the merchandise table with CDs and T-shirts a-plenty, but it was never actually advertised as a Ruts D.C. gig... a few days earlier I had a phone conversation with Segs which went along the lines of 'so if we were to borrow some drums and amps and play as a three-piece, what songs could we play?' Good question!
My good friend Big Andy (who is!) joined me behind the merchandise desk while The Black Bombers (great garage-y rock'n'roll, definitely worth keeping an eye on) and The Cracked Actors (reggae/ska stuff, good but they played for a bit too long for me) did their stuff and Dave and Segs span some tracks in between times. We'd had a 'so what songs could we play then?' chat in the dressing room earlier in the evening and had come up with a rough plan - in the event we played (from memory so I might be wrong) 'Whatever We Do' / 'It Was Cold' / 'Backbiter' / 'Dope For Guns' / Staring At The Rude Boys' / 'In A Rut' and an encore of 'Babylon's Burning' to scenes of not-inconsiderable audience mayhem. Segs and Dave told a couple of very funny stories, I met Roland Link who wrote 'Kicking Up A Racket', a biography of Stiff Little Fingers and who is currently writing a book on The Ruts / Ruts D.C. and everyone I spoke to thought the evening was a great success. I think it was too!
On Saturday evening The Upper Cut journeyed to Welwyn Garden City to play at Grant and Rachel's joint 40th birthday party at Panshanger Golf Club. It had been a while since I'd played at an event such as this - I always remind myself that the live entertainment is only a small part of the evening (after all, it's the person or people that the party is being thrown for that should be the centre of attention don't you think?) and that for that reason it's not a 'gig' as such, more a gathering of family and friends that happens to have a disco and a live band. I suppose this is all to make me feel better when the band is all but ignored which is something that so often happens at nights like this - we weren't ignored this time but you could feel people wondering why we were there and why the disco wasn't happening all evening. That said we did get some nice comments from a few people and there was no outright hostility so overall it was definitely a 'more-pluses-that-minuses' sort of evening - and the band hadn't played for a while so it was good to all get together again.
Sunday morning rehearsals seem to be the way of things with Back To Zero, and this week it was my turn for a local one - Andy, Sam, Squirrel and myself amassed outside RnR Studios in Uxbridge at 10am and waited...and waited... and waited... eventually a sheepish lad turned up to let us in mumbling about 'forgetting to put the clocks forward'. Well, I guess we've all done it haven't we? Over the next four hours we ran through all the material that we're intending to play at next month's gigs, and I have to say that it's all sounding rather fine. There's often a moment in rehearsals when you stop sounding like a band of musicians and start sounding like a 'band' - ours was somewhere on Sunday morning. There's still a keyboard player to add and one of the original singers is going to guest on a few songs but as it stands at the moment Back To Zero are already sounding good to my ears.
After a couple of late nights and an early morning I spent a fair bit of Sunday afternoon asleep - I'm sure that didn't used to happen when I was younger? Hmmm... anyway at 8.30 in the evening I was using the magic of Skype to talk to Rich, Tom and Ian of Music Scene Investigation, and from 9-10pm we all participated in the latest podcast of said programme. We had three good songs to review this time (that's not always the case!) as you can tell if you watch the show here - I still think that song 3 was the best don't you?
Of course after being asleep half the day I was wide awake at 10 o'clock in the evening, which meant that I was able to pop down to The Crown And Treaty where an all-day festival of original (as opposed to cover) bands was taking place. When I got there a rather scary black metal band were playing (sadly I don't know their name - incidentally if they ever read this and think 'hang on a minute, we're not black metal' than I apologise profusely!) and I'd arranged to meet my old mates Pete (still recovering from last week's SLF gig) Grant and Sam with whom I cowered at the back (it wasn't much quieter there to be honest!) before moving nearer to the stage to watch Frowser. I last saw them many (15?) years ago when I remember them being very impressive although it wasn't really my type of thing - Grant is a bit of a fan, Sam is less convinced and Pete missed them as he decided he'd had enough to drink and went home. I must say he did look as though he'd been there a while... anyway they were still very impressive although they're still not really my type of thing, although it must be said that it's great to see them still playing and indeed writing new material. However I have to agree with Sam's analysis that you 'watch them and think they're great but you can't remember a single song in the morning'. He's correct - I think they are, and no you can't...
Happy Easter everyone! Yeah!
Monday, March 25, 2013
Young, gifted and skint
Well that was a busy few days in mad-guitar-World...
On Thursday night The Skints played at Brunel University in Uxbridge. I'd heard a lot about the band not least from my old friend Andy Peart (more about him in a minute) but had never seen them or indeed heard much by them. This was a good chance to rectify the situation although since the show was a 'student only' event (I thought they stopped doing that sort of thing years ago?!?) I was doubtful that I'd be able to attend - fortunately the afore-mentioned Andy knows the band and managed to get my name on the guest list. I spent a good amount of the first song trying to work out where the lead vocal was coming from (I never spot a singing drummer!) which set the tone for the rest of the evening as the young lady in the middle played a bewildering array of instruments - keyboards, guitar, flute, saxophone and probably some more that I've forgotten - during the course of their set. Equally bewildering was their choice of Sam Cooke's 'You Send Me' as a cover version - a great song but for me a bit out of place. Still a good gig overall and I'm glad that I managed to see the band at last.
Incidentally Andy used to write for Sounds magazine as well as producing the excellent 'So What' fanzine - he now writes for 'Vive Le Rock' and has a piece on Ruts D.C. in the next edition. Excellent!
Talking of Ruts D.C. - at last weekend's show in Stockton-on-Tees several people told me that Stiff Little Fingers had played 'Staring At The Rude Boys' at their Newcastle gig the previous evening. I've since discovered that they've been playing it on the whole tour with Jake Burns preceding it with words to the effect of 'if you saw this band you were very lucky'. Sometime during the day on Thursday I received a call from Segs asking me to 'have a guess what I'm doing tomorrow night'...
Myself and my old punk mate Pete made it through the wind and rain to The Assembly House in Kentish Town for 8.30pm. I'd told Pete something like 'a mate of mine is working with SLF' and we were to meet him in said public house at the allotted time; the first gig he ever went to was Ruts D.C. at The Fulham Greyhound in 1981, and his face when Segs came over was a sight to behold. After a quick drink we walked over the road to The Forum where the band were due on at 9.30pm. I've always been something of a fan of the band, having first seen them around the time of the 'Hanx!' live album. These days Ali McMordie is back on bass (replacing Bruce Foxton) and they sound pretty much the same as they ever did i.e. very good indeed. Several new songs were featured, and they all sounded good enough for me to say that the projected new album should be well worth getting. After the main set finished with 'Suspect Device' they went off for a few minutes before returning for Jake to say a few words before introducing Segs who came on to a hero's welcome. 'A blistering version!' said Dave Ruffy as the song ended and I have to agree. (You can find out how good it was for yourself if you click here.) After the show we met up with Segs (he and Dave were immediately collared by fans for photographs) and then myself, Pete and punk gig stalwart Coppo went to the aftershow party in the upstairs bar. We set ourselves a curfew of midnight, which was just as well given that we got back to Pete's car to find that the hazard warning lights were flashing. We decided that someone must have bumped into it as Pete was certain that he hadn't left them on - either way we were faced with the grim prospect of a flat battery. 'Don't worry lads' I said with far too much confidence given what happened next, 'I'm in Green Flag'. I get membership with my bank account - but when I spoke to them I found that I doesn't cover me in someone else's car and that wed have to pay a call out charge (£108!) and further charges according to what then had to be done. Bugger! After a suitable amount of swearing Pete came up with a plan - ring around cab companies and see if any of them have any jump leads. Within 10 minutes we were pushing the car from Kentish Town Road into a side street where a cabbie gave up a jump start (at a cost of £10) and we were on our way. An eventful evening - but that 'ring a cab company' idea from Pete was a good one wasn't it?
My only gig of the weekend was my first show of 2013 with T.V. Smith, at The New Cross Inn in New Cross. (I've been looking forward to typing 'New Cross Inn in New Cross' all weekend. It's a simple life sometimes isn't it?) Coppo offered myself and T.V. a lift to the show (that's another drink I owe you mate) but heavy-ish traffic meant that we sadly arrived too late to see the wonderfully-named Fishtits meaning that as I can't find them anywhere on the Internet we can only speculate on how they sound; however I did see Emergency Bitter (great raucous fun), On Trial UK (good old school punk) and The Phobics (excellent garage-y rock 'n' roll) all of whom were very entertaining. From our point of view we'd had a rehearsal on Wednesday which went well but I'd not had chance to run through the songs between then and the show meaning that I felt a little under-prepared. Whether this was the reason I started 'You Saved My Life Then Ruined It' in the wrong key I guess we'll never know. (It sounded terrible! T.V. thought that it was his fault - it wasn't!) That aside the show went very well, including responding to a call from the audience for 'The Servant' (we hadn't rehearsed that one or played it for ages - here it is from the gig!) and with T.V. as wonderfully energetic as ever. After the gig a chap came over and asked me if I'd sung with SLF the night before - he seemed terribly disappointed when I told him that it wasn't me. Well - it wasn't! In the meantime T.V. did a roaring trade in t-shirts and CDs including his latest re-issue, a Cheap anthology. I've been looking forward to this for some time, not least because I've written some sleeve notes for it - a blog posting on my (brief) involvement with the band will follow shortly but in the meantime you can get the disc from T.V.'s website here. I can't recommend it highly enough!
Back To Zero reconvened at Soundlab Studios in Loughton yesterday morning. Andy, Sam and Squirrel had got together in my absence last weekend, and we continued the good work with more progress being made and everybody pronouncing themselves happy with the way that things are going. There's still a fair bit of work to do before our gigs in May (more about them nearer the time) but it's all sounding very encouraging.
From there I made my way to The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge for the monthly open mic / jam night (actually more of a 'jam early-evening') which proved to be a highly enjoyable affair. It also proved to be a rather longer and shall we say 'confusing' session than I for one was anticipating so the exact details are sketchy, but it was a good way to end the weekend. That said I've got to leave in a half hour or so for an Upper Cut rehearsal, and I don't mind admitting that I feel, to use a technical term, absolutely knackered. Still the last thing that I'm going to do is complain - on Wednesday T.V. said that I'd 'spent too long in the wilderness' and that it was great to see me so busy. It was a nice thing for him to say, and without counting too many chickens there does seem to be a change in the air at the moment on many levels, although next month is significantly quieter than this one and I still don't seem to have very much money... ah well, let's see what happens next.
Well what happens next is a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' this Friday at The Hare And Hounds in Birmingham. I've never had a launch party before! It should be fun... and I'm on Music Scene Investigation this Sunday evening at 9pm - on with the big headphones once again!
On Thursday night The Skints played at Brunel University in Uxbridge. I'd heard a lot about the band not least from my old friend Andy Peart (more about him in a minute) but had never seen them or indeed heard much by them. This was a good chance to rectify the situation although since the show was a 'student only' event (I thought they stopped doing that sort of thing years ago?!?) I was doubtful that I'd be able to attend - fortunately the afore-mentioned Andy knows the band and managed to get my name on the guest list. I spent a good amount of the first song trying to work out where the lead vocal was coming from (I never spot a singing drummer!) which set the tone for the rest of the evening as the young lady in the middle played a bewildering array of instruments - keyboards, guitar, flute, saxophone and probably some more that I've forgotten - during the course of their set. Equally bewildering was their choice of Sam Cooke's 'You Send Me' as a cover version - a great song but for me a bit out of place. Still a good gig overall and I'm glad that I managed to see the band at last.
Incidentally Andy used to write for Sounds magazine as well as producing the excellent 'So What' fanzine - he now writes for 'Vive Le Rock' and has a piece on Ruts D.C. in the next edition. Excellent!
Talking of Ruts D.C. - at last weekend's show in Stockton-on-Tees several people told me that Stiff Little Fingers had played 'Staring At The Rude Boys' at their Newcastle gig the previous evening. I've since discovered that they've been playing it on the whole tour with Jake Burns preceding it with words to the effect of 'if you saw this band you were very lucky'. Sometime during the day on Thursday I received a call from Segs asking me to 'have a guess what I'm doing tomorrow night'...
Myself and my old punk mate Pete made it through the wind and rain to The Assembly House in Kentish Town for 8.30pm. I'd told Pete something like 'a mate of mine is working with SLF' and we were to meet him in said public house at the allotted time; the first gig he ever went to was Ruts D.C. at The Fulham Greyhound in 1981, and his face when Segs came over was a sight to behold. After a quick drink we walked over the road to The Forum where the band were due on at 9.30pm. I've always been something of a fan of the band, having first seen them around the time of the 'Hanx!' live album. These days Ali McMordie is back on bass (replacing Bruce Foxton) and they sound pretty much the same as they ever did i.e. very good indeed. Several new songs were featured, and they all sounded good enough for me to say that the projected new album should be well worth getting. After the main set finished with 'Suspect Device' they went off for a few minutes before returning for Jake to say a few words before introducing Segs who came on to a hero's welcome. 'A blistering version!' said Dave Ruffy as the song ended and I have to agree. (You can find out how good it was for yourself if you click here.) After the show we met up with Segs (he and Dave were immediately collared by fans for photographs) and then myself, Pete and punk gig stalwart Coppo went to the aftershow party in the upstairs bar. We set ourselves a curfew of midnight, which was just as well given that we got back to Pete's car to find that the hazard warning lights were flashing. We decided that someone must have bumped into it as Pete was certain that he hadn't left them on - either way we were faced with the grim prospect of a flat battery. 'Don't worry lads' I said with far too much confidence given what happened next, 'I'm in Green Flag'. I get membership with my bank account - but when I spoke to them I found that I doesn't cover me in someone else's car and that wed have to pay a call out charge (£108!) and further charges according to what then had to be done. Bugger! After a suitable amount of swearing Pete came up with a plan - ring around cab companies and see if any of them have any jump leads. Within 10 minutes we were pushing the car from Kentish Town Road into a side street where a cabbie gave up a jump start (at a cost of £10) and we were on our way. An eventful evening - but that 'ring a cab company' idea from Pete was a good one wasn't it?
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| T.V. and Leigh share a 'Status Quo moment'. |
My only gig of the weekend was my first show of 2013 with T.V. Smith, at The New Cross Inn in New Cross. (I've been looking forward to typing 'New Cross Inn in New Cross' all weekend. It's a simple life sometimes isn't it?) Coppo offered myself and T.V. a lift to the show (that's another drink I owe you mate) but heavy-ish traffic meant that we sadly arrived too late to see the wonderfully-named Fishtits meaning that as I can't find them anywhere on the Internet we can only speculate on how they sound; however I did see Emergency Bitter (great raucous fun), On Trial UK (good old school punk) and The Phobics (excellent garage-y rock 'n' roll) all of whom were very entertaining. From our point of view we'd had a rehearsal on Wednesday which went well but I'd not had chance to run through the songs between then and the show meaning that I felt a little under-prepared. Whether this was the reason I started 'You Saved My Life Then Ruined It' in the wrong key I guess we'll never know. (It sounded terrible! T.V. thought that it was his fault - it wasn't!) That aside the show went very well, including responding to a call from the audience for 'The Servant' (we hadn't rehearsed that one or played it for ages - here it is from the gig!) and with T.V. as wonderfully energetic as ever. After the gig a chap came over and asked me if I'd sung with SLF the night before - he seemed terribly disappointed when I told him that it wasn't me. Well - it wasn't! In the meantime T.V. did a roaring trade in t-shirts and CDs including his latest re-issue, a Cheap anthology. I've been looking forward to this for some time, not least because I've written some sleeve notes for it - a blog posting on my (brief) involvement with the band will follow shortly but in the meantime you can get the disc from T.V.'s website here. I can't recommend it highly enough!
Back To Zero reconvened at Soundlab Studios in Loughton yesterday morning. Andy, Sam and Squirrel had got together in my absence last weekend, and we continued the good work with more progress being made and everybody pronouncing themselves happy with the way that things are going. There's still a fair bit of work to do before our gigs in May (more about them nearer the time) but it's all sounding very encouraging.
From there I made my way to The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge for the monthly open mic / jam night (actually more of a 'jam early-evening') which proved to be a highly enjoyable affair. It also proved to be a rather longer and shall we say 'confusing' session than I for one was anticipating so the exact details are sketchy, but it was a good way to end the weekend. That said I've got to leave in a half hour or so for an Upper Cut rehearsal, and I don't mind admitting that I feel, to use a technical term, absolutely knackered. Still the last thing that I'm going to do is complain - on Wednesday T.V. said that I'd 'spent too long in the wilderness' and that it was great to see me so busy. It was a nice thing for him to say, and without counting too many chickens there does seem to be a change in the air at the moment on many levels, although next month is significantly quieter than this one and I still don't seem to have very much money... ah well, let's see what happens next.
Well what happens next is a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' this Friday at The Hare And Hounds in Birmingham. I've never had a launch party before! It should be fun... and I'm on Music Scene Investigation this Sunday evening at 9pm - on with the big headphones once again!
Monday, March 04, 2013
Boys (and girls) will be boys...
Well I didn't play any shows myself last weekend (or at least I wasn't intending to...) but I did see a couple of bands :-
Friday night at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge and a young band called Girl In the Garden take to the stage. I'd seen a poster for them in the venue the previous weekend and Sam had said that he'd seen them and they were good so Pete, him and myself decided to go along. Sam was correct, they were good, very tight and well-rehearsed - something that we all agreed we were not even close to being at their age! I was a bit disappointed when they played a few cover versions as their own material was very good but I suspect it was to allow them to play in places like this where a lot of the audience want to hear familiar material. They reminded me a bit of The Arctic Monkeys (no bad thing) although I must say that overall I was very struck by what good players they all are - I suppose that in these days of guitar institutes and online tuition everybody is a virtuoso now. Is it just me or does it make them sound a bit, for want of a better term, grown up? It'll be interesting to see where they go next.
Rockstock at The Halfway House in Barnes couldn't have been more different than the previous night's band. They feature the ever-excellent Pete Parks on guitar, Andy Heart on bass and vocals and the brilliantly-named Ivan Hoe (you don't know how much I hope that's his real name!) on drums and they offer what I guess could best be called 'classic rock covers'. Unlike Girl In The Garden this wasn't exactly a slick performance, being basically Pete and Ivan having a go at whichever song Andy called up. Well either that or the rehearsal studio was closed... that said they attempted some very ambitious material (as I was to discover!) and they mostly pulled it off, albeit with the odd wrong turn here and there. In the interval Pete asked me if I fancied doing a couple of numbers with them - somehow I found myself attempting 'Pinball Wizard' and (gulp!) 'Stairway To Heaven' (whatever happened to a bit of 12 bar rock 'n'roll eh lads?!?) and all things considered I didn't make too bad a job of them, although as usual I wouldn't have mentioned it here if it had...
Time for the first studio rehearsal (as opposed to getting together around one of our houses) for Back To Zero, at Soundlab Studios in Loughton. In the course of the session we looked at seven songs including both sides of their 1979 single 'Your Side Of Heaven' / 'Back To Back', and without wishing to sound too big headed they all sounded pretty good to me. It certainly sounded good for our first time in a studio together, although I guess that proves the worth of our earlier meetings. There's still a lot of work to do before our gigs in May but talking to Andy and Sam in the pub afterwards (Squirrel sadly couldn't stick around) we all agreed that this is a band that we're all getting really excited about. Excellent!
The Friday just gone (March 1st in case you're getting confused - I know I am!) saw Tropic At Ruislip invaded by punk rockers (mostly middle-aged punk rockers, but punk rockers nonetheless) for an evening with The Pistols and The Ramonas. I'd been looking forward to seeing The Ramonas for a while as I'd heard good things about them, and I must say that they didn't disappoint. I suppose an all girl Ramones tribute band is only ever going to be a bit of a one line gag - but it's a good gag, and the girls do a fine job of emulating Da Bruddas, even if the shouts of 'One-Two-Three-Four!' are in a rather higher pitch than I remember them. And The Pistols were great too - it's always interesting to see a band that I've recently depped in, and the excellent Steve Tones was in fine form throughout as were the rest of the band. Paul / Rotten did however break rule number 1 in the live music performance handbook when he decided to take the mickey out of Phil the soundman - I suppose Phil could have chosen to retaliate with a wall of feedback so the resulting silence from Paul's microphone was probably the best option, at least from the audience point of view. It was great to see plenty of people at the gig too - a fine night all round.
Saturday night I depped in The Atlantic Soul Machine at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace. I played with the band on Christmas Eve which must have gone well since they asked me back (!) and although there wasn't chance to get together for a rehearsal this time the show was if anything better than my first outing with them. We were joined by John O'Leary for a version of Howlin' Wolf's 'Who's Been Talkin'' ('It's on the 'Rocking Chair' album' said John cheerily, which only added to the confusion of the band members that hadn't heard the song) and started the second set with the previously unrehearsed 'Ooga-Boo-Ga-Loo' by The Jazz Crusaders (no,I'd not heard it before either) both of which could have gone horribly wrong but thankfully sounded good. There was much dancing and merriment from the enthusiastic audience, and everyone seemed to be happy with the show which is always a relief from my point of view as a sub-sti-tute. And it was good to see Pete Feenstra again too - he remains as tireless as ever in his promoting of live music in London, which can only be a good thing for all concerned.
And talking of seeing bands that I've recently depped in, last night I saw The Good Old Boys at The Brushwood Inn (it'll always be The Turks Head to me!) in Hillingdon. Bill's depping for Nick on bass but other than that it was The A-Team of Alan on vocals, Pete and Simon on guitars and Hud on drums; with an early start in prospect I got there around 7.40 pm to find them already into their first set which sounded good if a bit loud for the room. (God I must be getting old!) Add to that the fact that they were mostly playing to lads who had been there all afternoon for the Arsenal vs. Chelsea match and so weren't too interested in the music and you've got the recipe for a somewhat patchy first set. Things improved considerably in the second half not least because more of the band's followers had arrived by then, and by the last few songs it was definitely a case of 'all's well that end's well' - at least it was until the aforementioned lads decided to get a bit too boisterous with each other and a small set-to ensued. It's always a shame when that happens, and it's definitely a shame when there's a band on as it might put people off from supporting live music at the pub in the future. Let's hope not, as the pub is only just starting to put groups on and the area could definitely do with a venue.
Right - this week sees Ruts D.C. play in Newport and Bristol, Wilko Johnson's farewell gigs and another Back To Zero rehearsal. A good few days in prospect then...
Friday night at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge and a young band called Girl In the Garden take to the stage. I'd seen a poster for them in the venue the previous weekend and Sam had said that he'd seen them and they were good so Pete, him and myself decided to go along. Sam was correct, they were good, very tight and well-rehearsed - something that we all agreed we were not even close to being at their age! I was a bit disappointed when they played a few cover versions as their own material was very good but I suspect it was to allow them to play in places like this where a lot of the audience want to hear familiar material. They reminded me a bit of The Arctic Monkeys (no bad thing) although I must say that overall I was very struck by what good players they all are - I suppose that in these days of guitar institutes and online tuition everybody is a virtuoso now. Is it just me or does it make them sound a bit, for want of a better term, grown up? It'll be interesting to see where they go next.
Rockstock at The Halfway House in Barnes couldn't have been more different than the previous night's band. They feature the ever-excellent Pete Parks on guitar, Andy Heart on bass and vocals and the brilliantly-named Ivan Hoe (you don't know how much I hope that's his real name!) on drums and they offer what I guess could best be called 'classic rock covers'. Unlike Girl In The Garden this wasn't exactly a slick performance, being basically Pete and Ivan having a go at whichever song Andy called up. Well either that or the rehearsal studio was closed... that said they attempted some very ambitious material (as I was to discover!) and they mostly pulled it off, albeit with the odd wrong turn here and there. In the interval Pete asked me if I fancied doing a couple of numbers with them - somehow I found myself attempting 'Pinball Wizard' and (gulp!) 'Stairway To Heaven' (whatever happened to a bit of 12 bar rock 'n'roll eh lads?!?) and all things considered I didn't make too bad a job of them, although as usual I wouldn't have mentioned it here if it had...
Time for the first studio rehearsal (as opposed to getting together around one of our houses) for Back To Zero, at Soundlab Studios in Loughton. In the course of the session we looked at seven songs including both sides of their 1979 single 'Your Side Of Heaven' / 'Back To Back', and without wishing to sound too big headed they all sounded pretty good to me. It certainly sounded good for our first time in a studio together, although I guess that proves the worth of our earlier meetings. There's still a lot of work to do before our gigs in May but talking to Andy and Sam in the pub afterwards (Squirrel sadly couldn't stick around) we all agreed that this is a band that we're all getting really excited about. Excellent!
The Friday just gone (March 1st in case you're getting confused - I know I am!) saw Tropic At Ruislip invaded by punk rockers (mostly middle-aged punk rockers, but punk rockers nonetheless) for an evening with The Pistols and The Ramonas. I'd been looking forward to seeing The Ramonas for a while as I'd heard good things about them, and I must say that they didn't disappoint. I suppose an all girl Ramones tribute band is only ever going to be a bit of a one line gag - but it's a good gag, and the girls do a fine job of emulating Da Bruddas, even if the shouts of 'One-Two-Three-Four!' are in a rather higher pitch than I remember them. And The Pistols were great too - it's always interesting to see a band that I've recently depped in, and the excellent Steve Tones was in fine form throughout as were the rest of the band. Paul / Rotten did however break rule number 1 in the live music performance handbook when he decided to take the mickey out of Phil the soundman - I suppose Phil could have chosen to retaliate with a wall of feedback so the resulting silence from Paul's microphone was probably the best option, at least from the audience point of view. It was great to see plenty of people at the gig too - a fine night all round.
Saturday night I depped in The Atlantic Soul Machine at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace. I played with the band on Christmas Eve which must have gone well since they asked me back (!) and although there wasn't chance to get together for a rehearsal this time the show was if anything better than my first outing with them. We were joined by John O'Leary for a version of Howlin' Wolf's 'Who's Been Talkin'' ('It's on the 'Rocking Chair' album' said John cheerily, which only added to the confusion of the band members that hadn't heard the song) and started the second set with the previously unrehearsed 'Ooga-Boo-Ga-Loo' by The Jazz Crusaders (no,I'd not heard it before either) both of which could have gone horribly wrong but thankfully sounded good. There was much dancing and merriment from the enthusiastic audience, and everyone seemed to be happy with the show which is always a relief from my point of view as a sub-sti-tute. And it was good to see Pete Feenstra again too - he remains as tireless as ever in his promoting of live music in London, which can only be a good thing for all concerned.
And talking of seeing bands that I've recently depped in, last night I saw The Good Old Boys at The Brushwood Inn (it'll always be The Turks Head to me!) in Hillingdon. Bill's depping for Nick on bass but other than that it was The A-Team of Alan on vocals, Pete and Simon on guitars and Hud on drums; with an early start in prospect I got there around 7.40 pm to find them already into their first set which sounded good if a bit loud for the room. (God I must be getting old!) Add to that the fact that they were mostly playing to lads who had been there all afternoon for the Arsenal vs. Chelsea match and so weren't too interested in the music and you've got the recipe for a somewhat patchy first set. Things improved considerably in the second half not least because more of the band's followers had arrived by then, and by the last few songs it was definitely a case of 'all's well that end's well' - at least it was until the aforementioned lads decided to get a bit too boisterous with each other and a small set-to ensued. It's always a shame when that happens, and it's definitely a shame when there's a band on as it might put people off from supporting live music at the pub in the future. Let's hope not, as the pub is only just starting to put groups on and the area could definitely do with a venue.
Right - this week sees Ruts D.C. play in Newport and Bristol, Wilko Johnson's farewell gigs and another Back To Zero rehearsal. A good few days in prospect then...
Monday, February 18, 2013
'Gizza job! I can do that!'
Only one gig for me this weekend, but as previously discussed I've been looking forward to this one for a while. I last depped in The Pistols back in (I think) January 2008 so when Paul / Rotten called just before Christmas to ask if I'd be available to play with the band again I jumped at the chance. I've made my admiration for The Sex Pistols clear on a number of occasions in these hallowed pages so I won't repeat myself here other than to say that I don't think rock 'n' roll guitar gets much better than when it's played by Steve Jones. Personally I've never had much time for the post-Rotten 'Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle' material (although 'Silly Thing' was pretty good!) but for me 'NMTB' and the b-sides of the associated singles is some of the most incendiary music ever written and recorded - so the chance to play it live is definitely not to be missed.
We arrived at Fat Lil's in Witney to find that co-headliners The Clashed were nowhere to be seen. After several fruitless attempts at contacting them it was clearly time to rethink the evening. We were due on at 10.30 for an hour set, but this was quickly revised to 'go on whenever you like and play for as long as you can'. Good job I looked at the 'Swindle' stuff then...
As we were setting up Toby the drummer discovered that he had no hi-hat clutch with him - as he attempted to solve the problem with some gaffa tape (is there nothing that you can't use that stuff for?!?) I sent a text message to my mate Jon (who I'd arranged to meet later, he's also known as Johnny Guitar) to see if he knew anyone who could lend us one. Sadly he drew a blank, but in the meantime Toby had managed to improvise a solution of sorts. Meanwhile I'd been looking around for a chair or some beer crates to put my amplifier up on (I generally try to get my amp up off the ground, it helps with hearing what you're playing!) and was eventually given two small Marshall cabinets to use, which certainly looked good if nothing else.
With everything set up I went up to the bar to look for the afore-mentioned Jon but instead bumped into Alan, another old mate who has moved out into the area. It was good to catch up with him and indeed Jon who arrived while we were talking.
10.15 and it's time for 'Holidays In The Sun'. Paul is in suitably anarchic form at the front of the stage, Tim / Sid is prowling around next to him and Toby is coping very well with the ailing hi-hat. When someone shouts out 'you're shit!' Paul is straight back at him with 'you're ugly mate, but we can practise!' and the crowd love it. The set fells like it lasts no time at all, which is always the sign of a good show; we close with 'Anarchy In the U.K.' and 'Pretty Vacant' to scenes of general audience mayhem, and encores of 'Bodies', 'Friggin' In The Riggin'' (like I say, it was a good job that I looked at the 'Swindle' stuff) and 'My Way' finish a great show. Me? I haven't sweated so much at a show in ages, and my ears are still ringing. Mind you, they normally are! I hope it's not such a long time until I next play with them... and they're at Tropic At Ruislip on March 1st with The Ramonas which I'll definitely get along to if I'm not gigging that night.
Talking of not gigging I decided to use the fact that I wasn't out playing on Saturday evening to attempt to scour up some work in the Uxbridge area for The Upper Cut. First stop was The Abrook Arms where The Undersound were plying their trade - with 2 out of 3 band members suffering from the dreaded ManFlu their first set could have been a lot worse than it was. After leaving a CD with Andy the guv'nor it was down to The General Eliott to catch the second set from Power Of Soul, who sounded somewhat looser than usual although maybe the aural assault of the previous evening was beginning to catch up with me. Pausing only to sort out a gig in July (it's Simon the DJ's birthday bash - more about that nearer to the time) myself and ex-Cane Toads guitarist Pete decided to venture across the road to The Dolphin where Noel the guv'nor distinguished himself by (a) buying us both drinks and (b) offering The Upper Cut 4 gigs throughout this year including Boxing Day. Top man! In the meantime, my phone had been busy...
A plan had been hatched earlier on Saturday for another Back To Zero get-together on Sunday, this time involving perspective bass player Rob. All seemed straightforward enough, until Rob told Sam that he couldn't make it after all. In the course of their conversation it emerged that he couldn't really commit enough time to the project so him and Sam suggested that it was probably be best if he wasn't involved, which was announced to me while we were at The Abrook Arms with a text message that read 'it's time to get The Squirrel in'. Over the next couple of hours texts and conversations went back and forth, the end result of which was that my old Chicago Blues Brothers mate Johnny Squirrel met up with Sam, Andy and myself on Sunday afternoon in North London to discuss tactics. The meeting went so well that we are very likely to find ourselves in a rehearsal studio in the not-too-distant future. This is good news - it'll be great to work with Squirrel again, and there are some really good songs to play.
From there it was back to Uxbridge (incidentally due to track repair I was obliged to travel the entire length of The Piccadilly Line in both directions. How cool is that!) to continue with my gig-getting frenzy by heading down to The Crown And Treaty where a jam night was in progress. Old mates Pete, Grant and Sam were cheerily propping up the bar - they somehow managed to talk me into playing 'In A Rut' and 'Johnny B. Goode' with them. I'm really wary about borrowing a guitar (I always think I'm going to break it, or that it'll suddenly fall apart!) but I managed to play the songs without anything awful happening. After a couple of drinks with the lads and getting a couple of possible gig dates it was time to walk down to The Crown in Cowley where an acoustic session was in progress. I've known Dave there for quite a while and he coerced me into playing a few songs, although by then I was flagging a bit. In fact I can really remember what they were! Still I dropped a CD in there too, so hopefully there'll be a chance to return there with an electric guitar sometime.
And I've got no gigs this coming weekend either - bah! Oh well, perhaps I'll go out and look for some more then too...
We arrived at Fat Lil's in Witney to find that co-headliners The Clashed were nowhere to be seen. After several fruitless attempts at contacting them it was clearly time to rethink the evening. We were due on at 10.30 for an hour set, but this was quickly revised to 'go on whenever you like and play for as long as you can'. Good job I looked at the 'Swindle' stuff then...
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| The most expensive amplifier stand ever? |
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| Yes, that really is a Union Jack handkerchief on my head... |
10.15 and it's time for 'Holidays In The Sun'. Paul is in suitably anarchic form at the front of the stage, Tim / Sid is prowling around next to him and Toby is coping very well with the ailing hi-hat. When someone shouts out 'you're shit!' Paul is straight back at him with 'you're ugly mate, but we can practise!' and the crowd love it. The set fells like it lasts no time at all, which is always the sign of a good show; we close with 'Anarchy In the U.K.' and 'Pretty Vacant' to scenes of general audience mayhem, and encores of 'Bodies', 'Friggin' In The Riggin'' (like I say, it was a good job that I looked at the 'Swindle' stuff) and 'My Way' finish a great show. Me? I haven't sweated so much at a show in ages, and my ears are still ringing. Mind you, they normally are! I hope it's not such a long time until I next play with them... and they're at Tropic At Ruislip on March 1st with The Ramonas which I'll definitely get along to if I'm not gigging that night.
Talking of not gigging I decided to use the fact that I wasn't out playing on Saturday evening to attempt to scour up some work in the Uxbridge area for The Upper Cut. First stop was The Abrook Arms where The Undersound were plying their trade - with 2 out of 3 band members suffering from the dreaded ManFlu their first set could have been a lot worse than it was. After leaving a CD with Andy the guv'nor it was down to The General Eliott to catch the second set from Power Of Soul, who sounded somewhat looser than usual although maybe the aural assault of the previous evening was beginning to catch up with me. Pausing only to sort out a gig in July (it's Simon the DJ's birthday bash - more about that nearer to the time) myself and ex-Cane Toads guitarist Pete decided to venture across the road to The Dolphin where Noel the guv'nor distinguished himself by (a) buying us both drinks and (b) offering The Upper Cut 4 gigs throughout this year including Boxing Day. Top man! In the meantime, my phone had been busy...
A plan had been hatched earlier on Saturday for another Back To Zero get-together on Sunday, this time involving perspective bass player Rob. All seemed straightforward enough, until Rob told Sam that he couldn't make it after all. In the course of their conversation it emerged that he couldn't really commit enough time to the project so him and Sam suggested that it was probably be best if he wasn't involved, which was announced to me while we were at The Abrook Arms with a text message that read 'it's time to get The Squirrel in'. Over the next couple of hours texts and conversations went back and forth, the end result of which was that my old Chicago Blues Brothers mate Johnny Squirrel met up with Sam, Andy and myself on Sunday afternoon in North London to discuss tactics. The meeting went so well that we are very likely to find ourselves in a rehearsal studio in the not-too-distant future. This is good news - it'll be great to work with Squirrel again, and there are some really good songs to play.
From there it was back to Uxbridge (incidentally due to track repair I was obliged to travel the entire length of The Piccadilly Line in both directions. How cool is that!) to continue with my gig-getting frenzy by heading down to The Crown And Treaty where a jam night was in progress. Old mates Pete, Grant and Sam were cheerily propping up the bar - they somehow managed to talk me into playing 'In A Rut' and 'Johnny B. Goode' with them. I'm really wary about borrowing a guitar (I always think I'm going to break it, or that it'll suddenly fall apart!) but I managed to play the songs without anything awful happening. After a couple of drinks with the lads and getting a couple of possible gig dates it was time to walk down to The Crown in Cowley where an acoustic session was in progress. I've known Dave there for quite a while and he coerced me into playing a few songs, although by then I was flagging a bit. In fact I can really remember what they were! Still I dropped a CD in there too, so hopefully there'll be a chance to return there with an electric guitar sometime.
And I've got no gigs this coming weekend either - bah! Oh well, perhaps I'll go out and look for some more then too...
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
'If I don't see you no more in this World...'
Jimi Hendrix would have been 70 years old today. I wrote a piece on him in these hallowed pages on the 40th anniversary of his death (you can read it here if you'd like to) and I don't have too much to add to that except to say that I've got 'Electric Ladyland' playing in the background at the moment and despite many people's attempts at emulate it over the last 40-odd years it still sounds like nothing before or since. Who knows what further greatness he would have gone on to produce? As it he left behind an amazing legacy of music that continues to influence people today - how many of us will do anything that even approaches that?
It's hard to imagine the music world without Jimi Hendrix, but we might never have heard him without Chris Stamp who together with Kit Lambert ran Track Records, the label that released much of Hendrix's music during his lifetime. Lambert and Stamp also managed a little group called The Who, so you won't be altogether surprised to hear that I was very saddened to hear of Chris Stamp's death this weekend - my music world certainly wouldn't be the same without him or the acts he was involved with.
Two gigs from The Upper Cut along with a day in the shop and a Flying Squad rehearsal made for a busy but very enjoyable weekend for your humble narrator :-
Friday night saw another Upper Cut show at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge, and bearly a month on from our last appearance there we made a much better job of it this time. Good! Maybe it was because I could hear better (I had an earwax problem last time) or maybe we just had a good gig - either way we had a great night. It was a late one though, and the start of the next day in Balcony Shirts was more than a little bleary from my point of view. Still, that's what they sell coffee for... no time to worry about that though, as we're off to The Burnham Beeches Hotel (they don't normally let people like me into places like that!) to play at Nick and Emma's wedding reception. They come to see the band on a regular basis, and it was great to be invited to play for them. Wedding shows can often be rather strange affairs; I've realised over my time playing them that it's a mistake to think of them as a gig as the band is a really a minor part of the event, often being all but ignored by the assembled multitude. No danger of that here though, as people were on the dance floor almost from the word go - there was even a complaint when we went off for a break to allow Nick and Emma to cut their wedding cake! Terry the bass's night was made when he met Simon Nicol from Fairport Convention (he's a family friend of Emma's) in the interval, and our second set went even better than the first. We could even have played an encore (again often something of a rarity at a wedding) but instead handed our instruments over to Nick's old band The Frantix who played 'Town Called Malice' and 'Mirror In The Bathroom' before DJ's Simon and Darren took over for the rest of the evening's festivities. Great stuff all round.
On Sunday The Flying Squad returned to Ruff Rockers Rehearsal Studio (which for reasons best known to themselves has changed it's name to RnR Studios) for an all day session in preparation for next month's gig at Tropic At Ruislip with Dr. Feelgood. We worked on a Feelgood-free set for December 14th, and even though I say so myself we sounded good, especially considering that we were almost exclusively working on material new to the band. All in all a good day's work which hopefully bodes well for next month's show. And talking of rehearsing I have just - just! - returned from a session with T.V. Smith; our upcoming show at The 12 Bar Club promises to be a classic evening - but more about that next time...
It's hard to imagine the music world without Jimi Hendrix, but we might never have heard him without Chris Stamp who together with Kit Lambert ran Track Records, the label that released much of Hendrix's music during his lifetime. Lambert and Stamp also managed a little group called The Who, so you won't be altogether surprised to hear that I was very saddened to hear of Chris Stamp's death this weekend - my music world certainly wouldn't be the same without him or the acts he was involved with.
Two gigs from The Upper Cut along with a day in the shop and a Flying Squad rehearsal made for a busy but very enjoyable weekend for your humble narrator :-
Friday night saw another Upper Cut show at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge, and bearly a month on from our last appearance there we made a much better job of it this time. Good! Maybe it was because I could hear better (I had an earwax problem last time) or maybe we just had a good gig - either way we had a great night. It was a late one though, and the start of the next day in Balcony Shirts was more than a little bleary from my point of view. Still, that's what they sell coffee for... no time to worry about that though, as we're off to The Burnham Beeches Hotel (they don't normally let people like me into places like that!) to play at Nick and Emma's wedding reception. They come to see the band on a regular basis, and it was great to be invited to play for them. Wedding shows can often be rather strange affairs; I've realised over my time playing them that it's a mistake to think of them as a gig as the band is a really a minor part of the event, often being all but ignored by the assembled multitude. No danger of that here though, as people were on the dance floor almost from the word go - there was even a complaint when we went off for a break to allow Nick and Emma to cut their wedding cake! Terry the bass's night was made when he met Simon Nicol from Fairport Convention (he's a family friend of Emma's) in the interval, and our second set went even better than the first. We could even have played an encore (again often something of a rarity at a wedding) but instead handed our instruments over to Nick's old band The Frantix who played 'Town Called Malice' and 'Mirror In The Bathroom' before DJ's Simon and Darren took over for the rest of the evening's festivities. Great stuff all round.
On Sunday The Flying Squad returned to Ruff Rockers Rehearsal Studio (which for reasons best known to themselves has changed it's name to RnR Studios) for an all day session in preparation for next month's gig at Tropic At Ruislip with Dr. Feelgood. We worked on a Feelgood-free set for December 14th, and even though I say so myself we sounded good, especially considering that we were almost exclusively working on material new to the band. All in all a good day's work which hopefully bodes well for next month's show. And talking of rehearsing I have just - just! - returned from a session with T.V. Smith; our upcoming show at The 12 Bar Club promises to be a classic evening - but more about that next time...
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