Ruts D.C. European Tour, November / December 2019

As Ruts D.C. ready themselves for a return to showbusiness here's a look back at last year's November / December European tour... 

The stage is set - Das Bet, Frankfurt, November 29th 2019

Friday 29th November, 10.30 am, Room 21 of the Goethe Hotel, Frankfurt

'She said... I know what it's like to be dead...' I like The Beatles. I really like The Beatles. I mean I really like The Beatles. Sometimes I don't listen to very much else, and this is definitely one of those times. And today I really really like 'Revolver'. I've got something I can laugh about. Good day, sunshine.
Actually it's quite a grey day outside, but at least it's not raining. It was raining last night when we arrived at Das Bett in Frankfurt to load our gear in for our gig there, and it was still raining when we left there 7 or so hours later. At least that didn't stop a very enthusiastic audience coming to the show, but more about that in a minute. 
We - Ruts D.C. - are on tour in Europe. 12 shows in 12 days, 7 of them supporting The Stranglers in some very impressive venues, the rest club shows with us headlining. It's good to be back on the road (maaan!) although the road is long, with many-a winding turn - well, it certainly was yesterday as we travelled the 360-odd miles from Paris to Frankfurt, and it's the best part of 500 miles from Stuttgart to Bologna tomorrow. A long and winding road indeed.

But enough of the increasingly awkward quotes from not-particularly cool songs - how did we get here?

'Made it Ma,
top of the World...'

On Thursday evening we - tour manager Liam, Duds the driver and Dave, Segs and myself - stayed in the St. Albans B & B in Dover; this set us up for the 8.45 am ferry to Calais and the subsequent drive to gay Paris where the rain did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm at seeing our name (literally) up in lights at The Olympia. It's impossible not to be aware of the heritage of the place - from Edith Piaf to Jimi Hendrix and from Jacques Brel to David Bowie via Iggy Pop and indeed The Beatles, they've all graced the stage. And what a fantastic venue it is, from the drive-in backstage area to the astonishing foyer it lived up to it's legend with ease. Our breathless 45 minute support set started with 'Something That I Said', ended with 'Psychic Attack' and went down well with all concerned, although nothing quite prepares you for a shirtless Jean-Jacques Burnel coming into the dressing room to ask how the show went. 'Great' replied Segs cheerily, 'everyone said that I have a better physique than you'. 'Well, they would' smiled JJ. A good start to the tour.

And last night, the first of our 'solo' shows - a 90 minute roar through most of 'The Crack', a fair bit of 'Music Must Destroy' and all points in between. Das Bett is a excellent club, the audience was up for it from the first song - great stuff all round. 

Right - it's Stuttgart tonight so it's time for a shower now - on the road again...    

Monday 2nd December, 12.07 pm, carriage 5 seat 33 on the 11.45 am train from Rome to Turin 

Well. You never know do you? It goes to show you never can tell.

So there we were, less than 10 minutes away from The Orion, looking forward to another gig with The Stranglers and bemoaning the fact that we were on the Rome ring road rather than passing by The Colosseum when a previously unheard and not-even-vaguely nice sound came from somewhere beneath the bus. It was a kind of grinding noise. And as if by magic we stopped moving, and didn't start again. Bugger. I'd just replied to a message from Jim the Stranglers's drummer asking where we were and if we were ok by saying something like 'see y'all in 10 minutes' - as I say, you never can tell can you? 

Mr.Spock,
backstage at Goldmarks. Weird 

There are no good places to break down are there? This one could have been worse, but not much - as vehicles careered past us (and, strangely, the odd pedestrian - what on Earth were they doing there?) Duds had a hi-vis vest on and a red warning triangle out in no time while Liam went into a not-inconsiderable amount of mobile phone action. To cut a long-ish story short-ish, a very nice chap called Maximilian made three journeys to get the band, Liam and all our gear to the venue while the ever-heroic Duds stayed with the broken bus - he and it eventually got towed to the venue around 10 pm. We just about got set up and soundchecked before the doors opened at half past seven; we roared through our set as Liam made phone calls, sent emails and generally worked his magic on what until that point was looking like a distinctly unmagical situation while we played our show. We ended up staying on the outskirts of Rome (still nowhere near Colosseum - bah!) and we're now on the afore-mentioned train while Duds and Liam are in a hired van hoping to get our gear and baggage to Turin in time for tonight's show. Crazy times - and it had all been going so well... a great night for us at Goldmarks in Stuttgart - where we played a slightly different set to the previous night as there were people attending both shows) and a splendid support show in Bologna (where it was great to catch up with Marz from The Valentines and his lady Angela) had set us up for a good night in Rome. We played well - perhaps very well given the circumstances - but it was a very fraught time. In a effort to clear my head and to have a break from the backstage wheeling and dealing I went out to watch some of The Stranglers's set where I met some people from Coventry who had come all the way over to Italy to see us and who didn't actually know that The Stranglers were playing. Amazing. As I say, you never can tell - let's see what tonight brings...


Wednesday 4th December, 11.10 am leaving for Cologne

It's misty. Oh. ok, it's foggy. Actually that's a point - when does mist become fog? For that matter when does fog become mist? Hmm...

So here we are in our 'new' van, and very nice it is too. I believe that it comes courtesy of The Rumjacks via our friend Mark Sabin who, when he saw various Facebook posts detailing our plight in Rome contacted various people on our behalf. What a splendid chap - I really must get him a drink next time I see him.

When last we spoke Dave, Segs and myself were on a train bound for Turin. I spent much of my journey hemmed into my window seat by a (presumably) Italian goddess asleep in the aisle seat next to me. I don't think that she looked at me once during the journey - actually thinking about it she probably looked at me once and then decided not to look at me again. Ah well.

After arriving in Turin we took a taxi to The Hotel Galant where we managed 30-odd minutes of relative calm before taking another taxi to The Teatro Della Concordia just after 6 o'clock - after grabbing a bite to eat the call came through that our gear would be arriving any minute. Sure enough as the clock struck seven times the indefatigable Duds and the ever-exuberant Liam arrived, giving us 30 minutes to get the gear in, set up and soundchecked before the doors opened. Once again all hands were on deck, once again we somehow got it all done. It's amazing what you can do when you have to isn't it?

Live at Lucerne - thanks Martin!

When we started our show at 8.15 there must have been, ooh, 30-odd people in a venue that must hold at least 20 times that amount; when we finished 45 minutes later there were probably a couple of hundred more. They saw a show that for the second night running could very easily have not happened at all but which once again turned out to be better than it perhaps had any right to be. And last night we played Sedal in Lucerne - Martin and his team made us all very welcome (he designs the most wonderful posters as you can see here) and we played a very good show to a very enthusiastic audience. I do wish that they wouldn't let people smoke in venues though - they did ask people to stop while we played and put the air conditioning on but I suppose we've all got used to playing in clearer rooms these days. Sadly our stage fans had to be left in Rome due to lack of space in the van so it was bloomin' hot on stage - hopefully we'll be able to buy some more today. First World Problems eh?

Tonight we're in Cologne with The Backyard Band - we played with them last year and I really liked them so I'm looking forward to seeing them again tonight. We then rejoin The Stranglers for gigs in Amsterdam and Hamburg before journeying North for our own show in Husum - no, I don't know it either - then finish the tour in Berlin on Sunday. This means that we're now over halfway through our '12-shows-in-12-days' stint - I feel tired but not exhausted, and given the madness that has befallen us on the way everyone is in high spirits and pretty good shape. Let's hope that things stay that way.

Friday 6th December, 10.43 am, on the Amsterdam ring road

'Headache? Tense nervous headache? Take Anadin.'

Do you remember that advert? It's funny what comes into your mind sometimes isn't it? Well, it's funny what comes into my mind... 

Stage passes for the tour.
I could probably get a
few bob for these couldn't I?

I've got a headache at the moment, although not necessarily of the tense, nervous kind. It may be at least in part attributable to drinking until 2 am in Dan Murphy's Irish Bar near the venue. Or maybe I've just got a headache. In which case nothing acts faster than Anadin. Or something. Still 'twas a great night last night - The Milkweg is a classic venue, and with the show a sellout it was full when we started at 8 o'clock and even fuller (is that good English? It's not is it?) when we finished 40 minutes later. It was absolutely packed for The Stranglers, or it certainly was for the last part of their set, when I found myself wedged against the bar at the back of the hall - not the worst place to find yourself, although it did get a bit pricey... back to our show where, to continue the 'First World Problems' theme, both Segs and myself had odd moments with plectrums. I dropped mine during our first song ('Something That I Said' - we've started all the Stranglers support shows with this song, a good choice I think) and only just managed to get one out of my back pocket in time for the guitar solo (as I say, first world problems...) whereas Segs somehow cut his thumb opening a can of beer near the end of our set - as often happens if you cut your hand it bled profusely, although as he put it, 'it helped my plectrum stay on my hand'. On seeing it after the show JJ just calmly asked him 'did you hit someone?' A fair question I suppose. or certainly a fair question if you're Jean-Jacques Burnel. As I say, a splendid evening all round - unlike the previous evening at Helios 37 in Cologne where my amplifier decided not to work. Well that's not strictly true - it was fine during our soundcheck, to such an extent that our new friend Chris the sound engineer complemented me on how good it sounded ('at last, someone who knows how to work an amplifier'. What a nice chap!) And it sounded great after the show, when I decided rather nervously to try some trouble-shooting and it worked with no problem whatsoever. It was during the gig that it didn't play the game - total silence is never a good start to a show. Fortunately we had a spare, but it took me a few songs to get going - overall not a bad gig, but our standards are high, and we felt that we'd dropped back a bit from the previous night in Lucerne. Still we were definitely back on form last night, and we're in Hamburg tonight which is usually a good one for us. Oh and before I forget, The Backyard Band were excellent. Check 'em out, you won't be disappointed!

Right - time for a sleep to get rid of this headache. Hopefully.

Sunday 8th December, 10.29 am, leaving Husum

The obligatory 'on the road' photo -
going from Italy into Switzerland

Well as I said earlier I hadn't heard of Husum before, but what a great place. We arrived early afternoon yesterday and so had a bit of time to look around, which of course involved the triumphant sighting of a Guinness sign (oh yes!) and a meal in an Italian restaurant (implausibly attractive waitresses!) before heading out of town to The Paulsen Hotel where I managed an afternoon nap - rock 'n'roll eh? We returned to The Speicher to set up around 6 pm - it's a great club with friendly people, which set the scene for a top evening. Perhaps surprisingly it took a while to get going; maybe there was a bit of a language barrier or possibly it was one of those venues that people go to whether the know the band who's playing or not - for example Segs saying that it was Malcolm Owen's birthday was met by almost total indifference and indeed silence. Still things picked up and with much dancing and merriment it was very much a case of 'all's well that ends well'. And there were more first world problems to contend with, this time for your humble narrator when my mobile phone went dead. As in 'dead' i.e. not working, black screen, the lot. It turned out that the battery went from around half charge to 0% in a few seconds - when you get these things they don't tell you that they don't actually work do they?

The previous night we supported The Stranglers at Fabrik in Hamburg - no delay in getting going there, as we left the stage to a reception that many headline bands would have been happy with. Great stuff - and talking of headline bands, The Stranglers were excellent, although as I have observed on a number of occasions in these hallowed pages, they usually are.

So - Berlin tonight, the last night of the tour. I really must work out how many miles we've travelled. I must also work out what on Earth I'm going to do with myself when all of this is over.

Tuesday 12th December, 10.49 am at home

It's always weird, coming home after a tour.

You feel tired... empty... or something.

I've just worked that we travelled over 3,500 miles in the buses which, leaving out the 600 mile flight home, means that we averaged over 250 miles a day. No wonder I feel a bit... something or other...

Great photo eh? Thanks Rikki!

But what a show to end on - Huxleys in Berlin used to be Neue Welt, which saw appearances from The Clash, Jimi Hendrix and (gulp!) Adolf Hitler among many others. And since Hendrix also played at The Paris Olympia it means that we began and ended the tour on a stage previously graced by The Experience. That's a nice thing to be able to type... 'twas a great gig to end on, with 'H-Eyes' making it's first and therefore only appearance on the tour - it was a requested by Rikki from The Stranglers road crew, who took some excellent pictures of us throughout the tour. The Stranglers were brilliant, Vom and Andi from Die Toten Hosen came along as did Mutti and Monica from Muttis Bookings, and quite a few of us ended up in The Franken Bar until the small hours drinking far too much - as I say, a great gig to end on. 

Hopefully there will be many more shows with The Stranglers - it's a great double bill that works so well on many levels for both the band and the audience -but in the meantime Ruts D.C. have got work to do. We've got a live album to put together and songs to write for a projected new release - but first I've got to do two weeks worth of washing. More First World Problems eh? When are we back on tour?!?

Ruts Dc, Husum, Germany, December 7th 2019

Days In Europa

Well none of us knew what to expect, but the Ruts D.C. Crewe Weekender turned out to be an absolutely fabulous event. Great performances from Criminal Mind, Tara Rez, Dealing With Damage and Kirk Brandon, the punk rock legend that is Auntie Pus compering and three Ruts D.C. sets - great stuff all round. And it was good to have time to meet people and, it must be said, have rather a lot to drink with them - no wonder I was totally knackered when I got home on Sunday afternoon. Still, no time to worry about that now as we're about to set off on a two week jaunt around Europe (while we still can!) playing support sets to The Stranglers and some club dates of our own courtesy of our good friends at Muttis Booking. There are some near-astronomical distances to travel, and 12 shows in 12 days is a heavy schedule, but I can't bloomin' wait. See you on the road, or indeed das Autobahn...

Do Anything You Wanna Do

'The Crack' by The Ruts was released 40 years ago on September 28th 1979.

I bought it then - my copy still has the 'Pay No More Than £3.99' sticker on the cover - and I absolutely loved it. I still do. It is, in my not-so-humble opinion one of the greatest records of all time, and that means a lot around these here parts - I spent so many hours listening to it, and so many more hours playing along with it in an attempt to decipher the wondrous electric guitar playing of the mighty Paul Fox. Although I couldn't have known it then it wouldn't be that long before I myself would be able to ask him how to play the songs; even more unlikely is the fact that these days I find myself playing the songs on stage with original Ruts Dave and Segs. It's a funny old life sometimes isn't it? You never know what fate has in store for you... 

...for example, who would have predicted a Ruts D.C. Weekender in Crewe, during which we will play 'The Crack', an acoustic set and more? Well certainly not me, but I wouldn't have predicted a European Tour with The Stranglers and a just-before-Christmas show at The Brixton Academy with The Alabama 3 either - as I say, you never know what fate has in store for you... and there's more - we have a live album recorded on the last tour coming out in December, and gigs a-plenty are already coming in for next year - great stuff all round. 

And who would have predicted that your humble narrator would be asked to appear on noted website Everyone Loves Guitar? Segs was on last month - you can hear him here if you'd like to, and very interesting it is too - and I'm recording my appearance tomorrow. I've been sent some sample questions and they're very in depth - I was expecting things like 'what gauge plectrum do you use?', not 'what is your happiest childhood memory?'. This should be interesting - I'm really looking forward to it!

But as if to prove that you don't get something for nothing in life, October 2nd saw the

death of Eddie And the Hot Rods singer Barrie Masters. I can't pretend to have known him well, but every time I did speak to him he was always friendly and enthusiastic, which is more than you can say about many people that you meet. And The Hot Rods have always had a very special place in my musical mind... I saw them play at Brunel University in Uxbridge way back in 1977 (probably 19th October) supported by No Dice - this was the first vaguely 'punk' gig I attended and it remains one of the most exciting evenings I've ever been part of. Everything about it was brilliant - No Dice were excellent (I've got an old single by them but I really must search out some of their stuff one day) and The Hot Rods were absolutely phenomenal. They looked great, sounded greater and, maybe most importantly from my point of view, they might as well have had a bloody great sign saying YOU COULD DO THIS LEIGH above their heads. I was a cripplingly shy, very-young-for-my-age 16 year old, and although it took me a long time I can say without being pretentious (for once!) that I wouldn't be playing the guitar today if it wasn't for that show. I saw them play again on many occasions - this amazing clip of them playing 'The Beginning Of The End' on The Old Grey Whistle Test shows just how great they could be as a live band - and then, incredibly, was lucky enough to appear on stage with the last line up of the band a couple of times, the last of which was at The Islington Academy in April this year - I played 'I Might Be Lying' and Ignore Them' (the A and B side of my favourite Rods record in case you were wondering) and joined a cast of thousands for the last song 'Gloria'. After the song had finished and everyone made their way off stage I somehow found myself with Barrie in the middle of the stage - he looked exhausted but he'd made it through an epic show. I lifted his right arm aloft, as you do with a champion who had just won the toughest fight of their life, and the place went mad. A fantastic, unforgettable moment. 

I owe Barrie and people like him more than I'll ever be able to put into words. 

I think of it every time I play. 

Roots, Radicals, Rockers and Reggae

So. 2018 then. Not a bad year?

No, not a bad year. Well, I didn't think that it was.

Then again considering that it began for me with my Dad catching The Flu then developing pneumonia I suppose I was rather hoping for it to improve... within a couple of weeks of that (and with him thankfully at home recovering) Ruts D.C. were gigging in Japan and Hong Kong then touring Australia and New Zealand before embarking on a British tour supporting Stiff Little Fingers. If that was all we'd done I'd be saying that it had been a good year, but we went on to play many more memorable shows - The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool is always a highlight, but the Rebellion Amsterdam weekend was wonderful; we also made our first visit to Denmark, played a tattoo festival in France, gigged on a boat up and down the River Spree in Berlin and more including a visit to Abbey Road Studios - little if any of which got reported here. It's all been on my Facebook page - which is a somewhat woolly excuse for this being only the twelfth blog posting of the year. There was a time when used to do that in a month. But I guess times change... maybe there'll be more here next year?    

Talking of 2019, I'm hoping to play some more shows with Punky Reggae Party. Having first gigged with them back in the summer (an incident that incredibly is reported somewhere in these hallowed pages!) I've since played a couple more gigs with them including a fine show at The Cavern in Raynes Park just before Christmas - hopefully they will be many more to come, the first of which is at The Bread And Roses in Clapham on Saturday 19th January. I'm also putting another band together with some old friends, but more news on that as and when I have it. And Ruts D.C. are heading out on the '40 Years Of The Crack' tour in February, with (hopefully) more to come after that.

So hopefully 2019 will be a good year for me and my guitar - and I hope it is for you too. 

Forwards!

'Hey hey hey - we're all riding on the ghost train...'

Ruts D.C. in Aarhus, Denmark, Friday 14th September 2018

Well - so much for me getting back into blogging eh? Maybe I should just try for a monthly bulletin? 

In my defence your honour I have been updating my Facebook page regularly, which I suppose is for want of a better word 'easier' than writing extended pieces here. I think it's the immediacy of being able to put something up more-or-less as it happens that's so appealing, whereas it takes a fair bit more work to get things onto here. 

So - since last we spoke... 

Ruts D.C. played three shows in Germany and visited Denmark for the first time - a splendid if rather tiring 4 days. The good news is that in time honoured tradition I took the usual scribbly notes, the bad news is that I can't find them. Bugger! Oh well... there are enough other scribbly notes that need to be written up here before those!
As we're playing the '40 Years Of The Crack' tour in February we're obliged to go underground from now until then, although I'm pleased to say that we're appearing at The Inkmas Tattoo Festival in France on November 18th. Hopefully a few other shows will come in too... that said we've got plenty to do between now and the tour - there are 5 songs on 'The Crack' that we've never played live, and in addition to learning them we've got to put a show together. There are talks of back projections and stage sets - maybe we'll use them, maybe we won't. It's the music that's important - well, I think that it is anyway. And that magnificent music will be available again on vinyl very soon - Dave, Segs and myself spent a day in the hallowed confines of Abbey Road Studios last month with noted mastering engineer Geoff Pesche cutting a new vinyl master of the album. Well I didn't do much, other than stumble around thinking about The Beatles - who incidentally were working on the song 'Piggies' from the soon-to-be reissued 'White Album' 50 years to the day earlier on September 19th 1968. The things I know eh?

So then - Hallowe'en. I'm obviously far too miserable to have anything to do with it under normal circumstances, but these are far from normal circumstances... today sees the release of the new single by Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants - the appropriately-titled 'Ghost Train'. Alvin is of course the bass player in The U.K. Subs who's also previously played with Iggy Pop and Cheap 'n' Nasty among many others - here he's joined by Subs sticksman Jamie Oliver and Godfathers guitar hero Steve Crittall, alongside guest guitarists Brian James (yes that's right, the chap that wrote 'New Rose') on the B-side 'Clumsy Fingers' and, incredibly, your humble narrator on the A-side. How on Earth did that happen? Anyway I might be a bit biased here but I think that it's a great record - you can hear and indeed buy a copy here. See what you think - there are only 300 vinyl copies so I wouldn't hang about if I were you...

And talking of tattoo festivals (now there's something that I never thought that I'd ever type!) Neck played The London Tattoo Convention last month, supporting the excellent King Kurt. 'Twas a roaringly good event with some frankly astonishing sights - let's see what we see next month... and I may well have a bit more time to play with them and indeed a few other people now, as my time with Big Al and The Blistering Buicks has come to an end. I'll miss playing with the lads, but when you've gotta go, you've gotta go. And you never know, it might leave me with a bit more time for blogging. 

Well, as I say, you never know.

Everybody Hurts

It has been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled... well maybe not rock 'n' rolled exactly, but it's been a month since I last wrote anything here. That is quite a long time isn't it?

After the 'my computer's at the menders for ages' saga sometime near the end of last year I mused in these hallowed pages as to whether I might have, for want of a better term, lost the blogging habit. I'm beginning to think that I just might have done just that although I guess that the fact that this posting exists rather contradicts that thought. I've kept my Facebook page updated, but that's 'easier' to do isn't it? Maybe I don't have very much to say for myself at the moment? Perhaps I'm busier than I used to be? It's probably a bit of both... or maybe it's the post-tour crash that I didn't think was going to happen? On the surface at least I didn't think that it had effected me too much - I felt much more obviously upset by the catastrophic Upper Cut performance referred to in the last posting for example - but maybe I was just delaying the inevitable.

It's been very busy in Balcony Shirts, to such an extent that I've just worked 7 days in a row and am likely to be in there for a fair bit of this week too. There's nothing that puts 19 shows with The Stranglers into perspective quite like this sort of conversation :- 

'So d'you print t-shirts in here then?' 
'Yes, yes we do - we're a t-shirt printing shop.' 
'So can you print me one then?' 
'Well we can have a go. What would you like on it?' 
'I dunno - what do you think?'

As you might well imagine at that moment I've got more than a few ideas as to what they should have written on their chest, but I've been known to say something like 'well I'd have a picture of The Who (or whoever - it literally makes no difference who...) from sometime in the 1960s (or whenever - it literally makes no difference when...) but I doubt that's the sort of thing you'd like'. After that anything can happen.

Ruts DC have played a couple of shows since last we spoke - our performance at The Grand in Clitheroe was thought by us to be below par although thankfully many were they who assured us that it wasn't (it's better that it's that way round don't you think?) while a boisterous gig at The Zikenstock Festival near Lille in France saw much stage diving (they like that sort of thing out there!) and general jollity all round. Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have been out and about too - highlights include a show at The White Swan in St. Albans which was curtailed after only 2 songs of the second set to allow those present to watch the Joshua / Klitschko boxing World title fight, while last weekend's 40th birthday party gig had your humble narrator musing to himself as to whether or not there might be some nice-looking young ladies present, then realising with some amusement that considering 40 years old to be 'young' meant that he / I am now officially 'old'. And it that all wasn't weird enough I saw Bob Dylan at The Bournemouth International Centre in (you've guessed it!) Bournemouth - his Bobness rarely if ever does what might be expected of him, and a set where he either played grand piano (often standing up) or wielded a straight mic stand in the slightly-disturbing manner of a not-very-good Rod Stewart tribute act without touching a guitar once wasn't necessarily what I for one would have predicted. Add to that the fact that the set mostly consisted of jazz standards (I believe he's just released an album of them) like 'Autumn Leaves' and 'That Old Black Magic' with the odd Bob classic thrown in here and there (often radically re-arranged - many didn't seem to recognise 'Tangled Up In Blue' until the title line, and I don't think many got 'Blowin' In The Wind' until it was all but over, if at all) and you had a show that more than a few audience members were none too happy with. Me? I loved it. Of course I did - he's a contrary old bugger, but all the better for it in my not-so-humble opinion.

I wouldn't mind ending up like that. Maybe I have ended up like that? Oh well - more whining self pity and non-crises again another time. Maybe even sometime soon...

25 with a bullet

So there we were - Dave, Segs and myself - in Dave's car on our way to Southend Airport on Friday afternoon when his phone rang. Nothing too unusual there as it rings all the time - as he was driving he had it plumbed into one of those new-fangled hands-free speakerphone thingys that let you answer the phone while you're at the wheel. It was Steve Beatty, head honcho at Plastic Head Distribution and Westworld Records. 'D'you want the good news or the bad news?' asked he. 'The bad news' answered Ruts DC as one man. 'You've missed out being in the indie charts by one sale' Various derisive noises were emitted by all concerned before he asked if we'd like the good news. Of course we would. 'You're number 25 in the Rock And Metal Album Chart' said he cheerily - if he said anything else it was drowned out by our whooping and hollering and the inevitable 'time for a drink then' from your humble narrator. And as this photo shows, it was all true - there we are between Pink Floyd and Guns N' Roses. And we're a couple of places above Lordi - you remember, that mad mob that won The Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago dressed as giant lizards, or something. Hilarious! 

We were en route to France for an appearance at Fiesta La Mass in Rennes the next evening - for reasons unknown (possibly flight availability?) we were travelling out the night before which meant that we got to the festival site in time to see The Angelic Upstarts roar through their set before retiring to The Hotel Voltaire for some much needed sleep. Being there a day early meant that we had time to look around town the next morning with the help of Vincent the promoter's daughter Alice - I'd not been to Rennes before so it was good to get a bit of a feel for the place and indeed to have a splendid lunch before going back to the hotel for a couple of hours. After an interview with the Punks Not Dead radio station (shouldn't that have an apostrophe?!?) we headed

back to the festival site where things were in full swing with local heroes Banane Metalik going down a storm. We met the Italian band Klasse Kriminale backstage, they're all big Ruts fans and very nice chaps to boot. We were due on at midnight although an issue with Dave's monitor meant that we actually started our set a few minutes late. I thought we played well although the onstage sound was a bit, for want of a better word, nasal which meant that it hard to hear each other sometimes - and as we started late we got the almost inevitable 'ONE SONG' instruction sign when we had two left to play. Halfway through 'In A Rut' Segs stopped the band with the words 'we didn't come all this way not to play ''Babylon's Burning'' did we?' He was correct - we didn't so we played it! A good show but maybe not a great one, especially compared to the previous week's gig, but that happens from time to time. We're up in Newcastle for North East Calling this Saturday so let's see how that one goes. And I wonder where (or indeed if) we will be in the charts this week?    

'We shall fight them on the peaches...'

The new Ruts DC album 'Music Must Destroy' was released last Friday on Sosumi / Westworld Records. To celebrate this (ahem!) momentous occasion we played a sold out show at The Underworld in Camden Town. Support came from our friends Department S who rather cheekily inserted the riff to 'Babylon's Burning' into their last song 'I Want' (in my day you stayed in after school for doing things like that!) and finished their show to an audience reaction that many-a headline band would have been proud of.

Our show was different for a number of reasons. We decided to play all of the songs from the album, three of which had not been played on stage before (since you've asked, 'Soft City Lights', 'Peacebomb' and 'Tears On Fire') while 'Golden Boy' had only featured in acoustic shows. After much deliberation we decided to use a click track on some songs which would allow us to use elements from the recorded versions on a backing track to augment the live instruments. We also invited David D'Andrade to join us for several songs - he plays guitar in The Razors with Dave, and in addition to being a great musician he's also annoyingly young and good looking with a full head of hair (I'm not bitter, honest!) so I made sure he was on the opposite side of the stage to me… add to this the for want of a better word 'pressure' of the occasion and we were set for a memorable evening. Of course as with so many things in life not everything went according to plan - Dave left his iPad at home ('thank gawd I backed it all up on my phone') so soundcheck took a little longer than it might although everything sounded good in the end, with the strings to 'Golden Boy' sounding particularly extraordinary through the PA. All well and good - except come showtime the phone decided not to work, meaning that all the work Dave had put in preparing the tracks and all the time that we'd spent rehearsing with them came to nothing. Bah! Oh well - at least we've got them for next time, whenever that may be… other than that the show went as well as any of us could have hoped for. An extraordinary, unforgettable event - but you don't have to take my word for it, as the always - excellent Elvis In The Clouds blog has published this review of proceedings which captures the story rather well - thanks Elvis!

Reaction to the album has generally been very positive, and I'm told that the initial pressing of CDs has sold out which is fantastic news. I saw the vinyl version for the first time on Saturday afternoon at All Ages Records in Camden where we participated in a signing session (which incidentally was really good fun!) and I must say that it looks tremendous. It's a couple disc set with the ten tracks spread over two 12" records so it should sound tremendous too. I'm off to sign 250 or so of them this afternoon to be sent out later this week to people who have bought them through PledgeMusic - exciting times! And talking of exciting times in addition to playing Fiesta La Mass in Rennes this weekend we've just been confirmed as the support band on The Stranglers 'Classic Collection' tour next year, which is splendid news. It also goes some way toward explaining the title of this blog posting, which I have shamelessly stolen from a review in '77 Sulphate Strip', Barry Cain's brilliant collection of writings from his time at 'Record Mirror' in 1977 and which I've been reading over the past few weeks. I first saw The Stranglers in that year - who'd have though that 40 years later I'd be in a band supporting them eh? 

Theatre of the absurd

Well time has been even tighter in these here parts over the last couple of weeks, hence the complete lack of blogging. How on Earth did I ever have chance to do several posts a month? It's been hard enough to find a few minutes to update my Facebook page, let alone write this stuff… we're still busy in Balcony Shirts - this is my only day off this week, hence the chance to attempt a quick posting now - and I've been gigging with The Upper Cut (a particularly riotous night at The Dolphin a week-and-a-half ago) and Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks (at The Three Wishes in Harrow and The Horns in Watford the weekend before last) so it's perhaps not surprising that I feel as though I've done nothing but work these days. And Ruts D.C. appeared at The Know The Future Festival in Vienne, France on the Saturday just gone - we'd not played for a while but put in a good performance alongside the likes of The Damned, The U.K. Subs and The Vibrators. The event took place at The Theatre Antique, a Roman amphitheatre which had to be seen to be believed - I've certainly never played anywhere like it before. The slightly peculiar travel arrangements meant that we flew out from Luton Airport on Friday lunchtime and returned home to Gatwick Airport in the early hours of Sunday morning - I got back home just in time to do an actual birthday gig (as opposed to The Upper Cut Uxbridge show the week before, which I played as an early birthday bash) with Big Al and the boys that afternoon at The White Horse near Staines. I'm still feeling tired now… more gigs this weekend, then it's off to The Rebellion Festival next week. No rest for the wicked, or indeed for me. 

Incidentally the always-excellent Aural Sculptors blog has just posted an audio recording of our set in Vienne, which you can download by clicking here. Enjoy!

'I've got dreams to remember...'

So - how do I describe the last few days? 

Well yesterday is reasonably straightforward to get to grips with - I got up, did my washing, caught up on phone calls and went to see a great gig by The Razors at The Feathers in Rickmansworth. Easy. It's the previous few days that's a bit trickier to put into words.
Here, in essence, is what happened -

Wednesday - rehearsed with Ruts D.C. during the day and The London Sewage Company in the evening.

Thursday - travelled to Paris with Ruts D.C., where we stayed in Montreuil in anticipation of playing a show there the following evening.

Friday - Ruts D.C. played said show at Cafe La Peche, part of which was filmed for inclusion in 'Tracks', a long-running Arte television show.

Saturday - travelled back to London where I played at The Shepherd's Bush Empire with The London Sewage Company and The Water Rats in King's Cross with Neck.

And that, in simple terms is what happened. But there was more, so much more to it all than that.

When you're a kid trying to learn to play the guitar, you dream a lot. Well I certainly did. I've realised that some musicians are more career-orientated from the word go when it comes to what they want out of playing music. Some want money, some want fame, some want sex, some want drugs, some want all of the above and more - and some of course get all of the above and more. I realise now that I was much more naive than that - maybe that's why I don't get very much of any of the above? On the other hand I get to do the things that I do - and that's alright. 

So what were my dreams about? Well as I say, I was pretty naive; I wanted to play music here, abroad, on television, in big venues, in bands that people had heard of - and I did all of those things in the last few days. Pretty good huh? Well I think it is - maybe one day I'll get some of the other things too? 

Blackpool Tower looks different
at this time of year...

The gigs themselves were great. Really great. Ruts D.C. last played a show way back in January at The 100 Club and rehearsals since then have mostly involved working on new material, so this week's get together was to revise our live show. And revise it we did - alongside the new song 'Secondhand Child' we also added a version of 'Brand New Cadillac' which Segs had sung at last month's Joe Strummer film gig; I'm not sure how long it'll stay in our set but it's certainly good fun to play and it made a good encore song. A film crew from the French and German television show 'Tracks' filmed part of our performance and an interview with Dave and Segs; they also filmed us at the Le Rond Point bar which has been our virtual home for the duration of our visit. We were staying next door at The Hotel de Belfort and had gone there shortly after our arrival on Thursday evening - Segs used to live in Paris and his astonishing command of the French language (or more specifically Parisian French, which I'm told is quite different) meant that we were accepted almost immediately, and indeed were in there until closing time. Despite our headaches we returned there the next day for lunch (which I missed as I decided to be a tourist and head for Place de la Concorde for some sightseeing) and for some food before the show. If I was to say that Segs was presented with a large bottle of red wine by Omar the owner as we were leaving for London on Saturday morning then you'll realise how well he was thought of in said establishment. The presence of the TV film crew also shows how well The Ruts and indeed Ruts D.C. are thought of in France - the 'Chorus' footage remains the best visual record of the original band playing live, and anticipation of our show was high. I don't think I'm being big headed when I say that we delivered the goods - you know when you've played a good show in the same way that you know when you've played a bad one, and this was definitely a good one. Our next gig is in Bedford on April 25th with The Neville Staple Band, and I'm looking forward to that being a good one too. Well you have to think like that don't you?

And then there was Saturday. After our Eurostar journey (isn't The Channel Tunnel an amazing thing?) I got something to eat before heading to Shepherd's Bush where I was playing at The Empire with The London Sewage Company supporting The Men They Couldn't Hang. The Empire. I've seen so many great gigs there over the years - The Who, The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop... and then there are those OGWT gigs from back on the seventies that I used to watch in between dreams - Rory Gallagher, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton... I'd not played there before and it has always been a place that I hoped that I'd play at one

Your humble narrator on stage
at The Shepherds Bush Empire.
Or is it a dream?

day. Things like this have a habit of being something of an anti-climax, and I was all too aware that this could happen here - thankfully our breathless 30 minute set was all that I hoped that it would be. And it was impossible to look out from the stage and think of the other people who had stood where I was now standing. I get far too romantic about this stuff sometimes don't I? Or maybe I don't get romantic enough? I should perhaps had stayed there all evening, watched main support band Merry Hell and headliners TMTCH, had a few drinks, talked to anybody that wanted to talk - but no, I had work to do. Neck were headlining an Easter Rising Commemoration gig at The Water Rats at 10.30, and as I left The SBE just after nine I'd be lying if I didn't say that part of me wished I was staying - but the other part of me was looking forward to playing at another venue that had previously eluded me on my (ahem!) musical journey through the venues of the World. Two name London venues in the same night - well, why not? And the Neck show was great too - it's good when that happens. Then again The Metropolitan Line was closed so I had a long and circuitous journey home - I don't remember that being in any of the dreams... 

Yeah I know, this piece is all a bit garbled - you should see the stuff I've left out!!