To Hull and back

Since last we spoke Ruts DC have played shows in Hull and North London - both good gigs, with more to come as we shall see. Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have also been out and about at The Farmers Boy in St. Albans (I'd not been there before, a great little venue) The General Eliott in Uxbridge (a suitably raucous local gig which got so hot that Al had to go outside for some air halfway through the second set) and Ye Olde Swan in Burnham (with fellow six-stringer Pete elsewhere I had to play his parts - I didn't realise that I had so much skin on my teeth) all of which reminded me how much fun it is to play with the band.

Back to Ruts DC - the Hull show took place last Saturday in the wonderfully-named Zebedee's Yard, which I believe is a car park when it's not a venue. We travelled up by train and arrived to find everything ready for soundcheck. There was just time to say hello to The Stranglers before running through a few songs then heading back to our hotel for some much needed food. We returned to find The Black Delta Movement on stage and the venue filling up nicely despite the rain, which thankfully stopped just before we went on stage. With only 45 minutes to play with we stuck more-or-less to the set we'd been playing on the Stranglers tour, with the addition of 'Suffragette City' which we dedicated to for local legends The Spiders From Mars. Although the rain had stopped it was still quite windy meaning that the sound on stage was a bit variable - we weren't sure if we'd played well but thankfully the audience reaction suggested that we had. We saw about half of the Big Country show (I hadn't seen them since back in the day and they sounded great - mind you, they usually did) before deciding to take our instruments and gear back to the hotel - we'd intended to return to see The Stranglers but somehow ended up drinking in the bar until 2 am. Well - it had started raining again, and we were thirsty... talking of which, last night we played at Urban Voodoo Machine drummer Gary 50th birthday party at Bones And Pearl Studios (another great name!) in Seven Sisters. 'Twas an evening of great jollity as you might well imagine - indeed it might be better if I leave the details to your imagination... go on, try imagining what went on... you're probably correct... but we played well, and that's the main thing. It only ever is.

This week we travel to Ireland for two shows with Stiff Little Fingers - as a long time fan I've been looking forward to these gigs since they were first announced. We're in Dublin on Friday before travelling up to Belfast for an open air show to celebrate SLF's 40th anniversary; The Stranglers (yep, them again!) and The Outcasts are also on the bill and with Terri Hooley of Good Vibrations Records DJ-ing the scene is set for a classic event. And after that we set out to play some shows of our own - but more about that next time.

The fickle finger of fate

I cut my finger on a piece of cardboard the other day. No really I did. I was in Balcony Shirts unpacking a box of t-shirts when I somehow caught the second finger of my right hand on the inside of the box - when I bought my hand out it was bleeding profusely, in the way that your finger does when it gets cut, if you know what I mean. I made some rather weak gags about suing them for an industrial injury and then was obliged to refuse a sticking plaster on the grounds that I'm somewhat implausibly allergic to them. I thought no more of the cut until Monday when I was running through some perspective new material for Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks with Pete and Big Al - it was a bit itchy and hot but I decided that this was because it was getting better.
The next morning it was swollen and red - except for the bit by the fingernail which was an ominous shade of light green. I walked over to the chemist shop across the road from me where the very nice young lady behind the counter (I don't remember chemists being quite so heavily tattooed when I was a lad?!) told me that I could try some antiseptic or TCP but that I'd probably be better to go to my doctor and get some antibiotics. I attempted to lighten the mood by observing that as a six foot tall man I am of course a complete wimp and surely this isn't that serious - she replied that if I went in the next day or so I'd probably save my arm. She didn't look anywhere near as jocular as I would have liked her to look.
The next day I stumbled into my doctor's surgery reception area and waited to see the receptionist. My finger hurt. Actually my hand hurt. The second finger was more swollen than on the previous day and the green bit was, well, greener. Darker. Urgh. I explained my plight to the receptionist who told me that the next appointment available with my doctor was in a week's time, unless it's a medical emergency. 

'Is it a medical emergency?' 

'Well not really' I replied, 'although I do play the guitar, and...' 

At this point she saw my hand. Her eyebrows raised slightly.

'Can you come back at 2.30 today? The nurse can see you then'

Yes of course I can. Gulp.

Not long after my allotted time a cheery face appeared through the half-opened door. 

'Mr Heggarty? Would you like to come through?'

Yes of course I would. Gulp.

The nurse looked reasonably interested as she listened to my rather pathetic tale of cardboard carnage. When she saw my devastated digit her eyes widened. 'Hmm' she said typing furiously, 'I'd better get a doctor to have a look at this' adding 'I'll just put that it's urgent' as she typed six letters - presumably U-R-G-E-N-T - at a rather slower pace than she'd typed all the other letters. Within 30 seconds a lady doctor that I'd never seen before (I'm lucky enough to not have to go there very often!) let herself into the nurse's room, said hello and asked to look at my hand. 'Ah!' she said before explaining that yes I'd need antibiotics and that if they didn't work 'we'll have to use a scalpel'. 

I said that I'd like to try the antibiotics.

'I guess everybody asks if they can drink when I'm taking these?' 

She smiled as she looked up from scribbling a prescription. I could but they might not work as well as if I didn't. Ok then, I won't. Much.

£8.20 (£8.20!) later I had my tablets. I started taking them more or less immediately, and I'm still taking them now. But more about that in a minute.

It being the week of St. Patrick's Day I'd been contacted by Leeson to see if I'd like to join Neck for their celebratory shows; I was also asked if I'd like to play a couple of songs with Department S at their Half Moon Putney gig supporting The Members - sadly I was obliged to decline both of these offers. More seriously there was a Ruts DC recording session booked with James for tomorrow, but we decided it was best to postpone this until I'm fully recovered rather than waste time and money. Bah! Mind you this was also the week that Iain Duncan Smith resigned - there's lots to say about that but maybe I'll do that next time. I did heroically manage to wince my way through a couple of shows with Big Al and co. (at The Riverside Club in Staines and The Queen's Arms in Colnbrook since you've asked) but I fear neither of my performances will be seen as highlights of my rather dubious 'career'. It's all about that weird feeling that when you're waiting for something to go wrong it's very hard to make something go right - every time the end of my right second finger touched the guitar it sent a shot of pain right up my arm, and since I was always trying to stop that from happening I couldn't play how I would have liked. Not good frankly. Oh and I've just remembered that a bird, er, sent me a message on the way to the shop on Saturday. Why do people say that's lucky? It certainly didn't feel it when it happened.

Anyway I woke up this morning with my right hand throbbing. 'Time to do something about this' I said to myself (or maybe even out loud) as attempted to make a left - handed coffee. After horrifying the lads at the shop with the sight of my finger I once again stumbled into my doctor's surgery reception area and once again left with a 2.30 appointment to see the nurse. As I sat in the waiting room I amused myself with the (to me) ironic sight of The General Eliott being advertised on the TV screen in the corner - plugging a pub in a doctor's surgery eh? I also decided that I was more nervous than perhaps I had realised. It was a different nurse this time, but once again the same lady doctor was summoned after the nurse's eyebrows had practically hit the ceiling at the sight of the famous finger. 'I won't lie to you Leigh, this is going to hurt'. She wasn't wrong. It's never good when a doctor calls you by your first name is it?  

As I picked up another prescription's worth of antibiotics from the chemist I reflected on the previous few days. Not a good week. This week will be better. Please!

The calm before the storm?

Over the past few days I have, among other things and in no particular order :-

Worked at the Balcony Shirts t-shirt emporium in Uxbridge.

Spent an evening with Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes at The 12 Bar Club in London's Denmark Street during which Barnsley punks System Of Hate played an agreeably noisy set.

Rehearsed with Ruts D.C. at The Music Complex in Deptford. 

Played 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Why Me' with Big Al, Pete and the house band at The Three Wishes jam night in Edgware.

Fought off a painful sinus problem. Hopefully.

Watched The Good Old Boys play a fine set at The General Eliott in Uxbridge.

Seem Lead Shot Hazard (who feature Balcony Shirts t-shirt printer Dave on bass guitar) come third in a Battle Of The Bands competition at Brunel University, also in Uxbridge.

And tomorrow I'm setting out with Ruts D.C. to support The Damned on their British tour :- 

- oh yes!

If you're going to a show then I'll see you there...

Sing something simple

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?

'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...

'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... 

The most expensive
amplifier stand ever?

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.

Yes, that really is a Union Jack
handkerchief on my head...

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...

His-tory repeating

I was stumbling around first thing on Thursday morning attempting to wake up when an item on Breakfast TV caught my (half open) eye. It seems that some local ladies had led a protest outside a cinema in Chesterfield that was showing 'The Iron Lady' - they were angry at the film's portrayal of Margaret Thatcher as some sort of feminist icon rather than as the inhuman monster that she so obviously is. They had one of the protesters in the studio, along with a film critic - the protester admitted that she hadn't seen the film which unfortunately weakened her argument somewhat, but the item raised some interesting points about the re-writing of history that seems to be happening around the dark days of the '80s. I must say that I haven't seen the film either (mostly because the clips that I have seen show Meryl Streep's performance to be such an uncannily accurate recreation of the harridan herself that I wouldn't be able to watch it without breaking something) but in my not-so-humble opinion the Conservative government of the time all but destroyed this country, and any attempt at recasting the leader of that government as a hero has to be spoken out against. Chesterfield was very badly effected (and indeed continues to be effected) by the closure of the coal mines in the mid-'80s, hence the protest there - it'll be interesting to see if there are any other protests along similar lines anywhere else.

Time for the first Uppercut gig of 2012, and it's at a new venue for us, The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham. It's one of those pubs that seems to reveal a new part of it every time you turn a corner (if you know what I mean) and from our point of view the show was very definitely a game of two halves. We began uneventfully enough with '(Sittin' On) Dock Of The Bay' (we find that it's often a good idea to start with a relatively laid back song, especially at somewhere that we've not played at before) but during 'Under My Thumb' some very strange noises started coming from the P.A. system. And no, I don't mean my backing vocals - more like a high pitched foghorn which we assumed was feedback and which had at least one audience member putting his fingers in his ears. It got so bad that we had to abandon our third song 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' to try to find out what was causing it - by a process of elimination (plugging and unplugging things!) it revealed itself to be coming from my microphone. Bah! We unplugged it, re-started the song and played the rest of our first set without incident to the increasing approval of those present. Good.

In the interval I decided to put some music over the P.A. for a bit of atmosphere - when I plugged my phone into the same channel that my microphone had been in the high-pitched foghorn noise re-appeared. So it wasn't feedback... time for a visit to the repairman then!

The second set went better than the first, helped by the boisterous presence of a bunch of lads who sang along lustily at every opportunity (often into Terry's microphone) and a fair bit of dancing from the locals. We even played a request of 'Johnny B. Goode' as a second encore which we don't normally play but managed to get through without too many problems. A good gig - in the end.

And it was definitely a good gig last night, when The Good Old Boys returned to The General Elliot in Uxbridge for the second time in less than a month. The show before Christmas was enjoyable but this one really was excellent - Nick Simper returned on bass meaning that 'Hush' was back in the set, and the whole band were on top form throughout the show. Alan, Pete and myself have a couple of upcoming gigs for our acoustic trio The Rikardo Brothers which I'm really looking forward to; various rehearsal dates and perspective new songs were discussed before myself and East joined Hud at the bar for a few drinks and a discussion that went on well past my bedtime - details are sketchy but East's declaration of intent to form a band called Ned's Acoustic Dustbin to play a song called 'Kill Your Tunnel Vision' shows that the producers of 'The Iron Lady' may not be alone in rewriting the history of the 1980s...

Who'll love Aladdin Sane?

Hmm... I don't remember this photo being taken. And who's that guy on the far left?

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the Balcony Shirts Christmas card. And why not?

It's been very - make that very - busy in the shop, not least on Saturday when your humble narrator found himself to be more than a little worse for wear after a night at the General Elliot watching The Good Old Boys. My condition had little to do with the band (who gave a typically excellent performance) but was more to do with the oceanic quantity of lager consumed by myself and East - perhaps his one word text message to me the next morning said all that needs to be said... and we've continued to be busy all week, which is good news in these troubled times.

The Upper Cut played at The Load Of Hay on Sunday for the first time since my birthday back in July. From my point of view we took a while to get going, with our first set feeling a little bit too much like hard work although the audience reaction suggested otherwise. Pete from Awaken joined us on guitar for several numbers, and with us being called back for several encores even I had cheered up (a bit) by the end of the show. We're playing again on Boxing Night at a secret regulars / invite only show in Uxbridge - it's like being in the Pistols!

And following on from the last posting's YouTube-fest a momentous televisual event occurred during a Top Of The Pops Christmas special broadcast on Wednesday evening, when footage of David Bowie performing 'The Jean Jenie' was shown for the first time since 1973. It was thought to have been lost forever thanks to the BBC's ridiculous policy of wiping recordings, but cameraman John Henshall kept a copy so that he could show how a camera lens that he'd developed was working. The story even made the evening news, and you can see why here - it features Bowie and The Spiders From Mars playing live, with the band in their glam rock finery and the mighty Mick Ronson at his magnificent best. Boy could he play guitar. It doesn't get much better than this - but I wonder what else Mr. Henshall has in his loft?

Well that clip is enough to give me a happy Christmas! I hope that you have one too.

R.I.P. R.E.M. / T.O.T.P. / O.G.W.T etc

Well I for one was sad to hear that R.E.M. have decided to 'call it a day as a band'. I've not always liked their music but I've always liked them if you know what I mean - given their immense level of success they seem to me to have remained as independent as possible (always a good thing don't you think?) as well as supporting environmental and human rights causes (something that's often a controversial move particularly in the U.S.A.) and, let's not forget, producing some very good music. For what my opinion is worth I think Peter Buck is one of the great alternative rock guitarists - his anti-guitar-hero approach to playing (perhaps best summarised as 'do what's right for a song rather that what might make you look good') is something that a lot of musicians could learn from; Michael Stipe has always been a fabulously eccentric frontman as well as being a brilliantly original singer (not sure what some of those lyrics are about though!) while the original rhythm section of Mike Mills and Bill Berry are as good a combination as any that you care to name. Since Berry's departure due to illness in 1997 the band have perhaps struggled to reach their earlier heights (although I personally think that 'The Great Beyond' is as good a song as anything from their earlier catalogue) but they remained a classic live act, and as their comments on their website regarding their decision to disband confirm they're a band that will be missed in a rock music world that sadly often devoid of the kind of principals and intelligence that they had in abundance.

No gigs for me this weekend (and none next weekend either - bah!) which meant I was able to catch a typically splendid performance from The Good Old Boys at The General Elliot in Uxbridge on Friday evening. Alan, Pete and myself all agreed that The Rikardo Brothers should chase some more gigs (we haven't been able to get together through the summer due to us all having other work etc) so we're all going to get busy looking for gigs. I've also had time to catch a bit of music on the television - B.B.C. 4 have been re-showing episodes of 'Top Of The Pops' from 1976 over the last few months and I've seen as many of them as I can and apart from the odd appearance from the likes of T. Rex it's been as dreadful (make that dreadful) as you might think it would be. But this week it featured none other than Eddie And The Hot Rods whose barnstorming live performance of Bob Seger's 'Get Out Of Denver' was witnessed by your humble narrator back in the day. I witnessed it again on Thursday night and it was simply fantastic, and a portent of punkier times to come over the next couple of years. I really hope that they continue to show further programmes as some remarkable performances could well be on the horizon. And the same station also showed a compilation of 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' footage this weekend too, some bad, some good, all of it a priceless reminder of the role played by the show in giving many people their first television exposure. And if that wasn't enough 'Later... with Jools Holland' last night featured Wilko Johnson - yes, the King Of Canvey Island live in your own front room. If you missed it then here it is - and there's hopefully more from the great man and his cohorts on Friday evening's show! Maybe I should watch the telly more often!

None for ages and then two come along at once

So - the News Of The World has been closed down by it's owner, who in doing so has once again shown a typically callous disregard for the men and women unfortunate enough to be in his employment. Presumably it's an attempt to avoid further scandal - rather ironic given the nature of said publication don't you think? - and to save his own (and no one else's) skin. However you look at it this is a sad state of affairs - each day a new revelation, a new victim, a new reason to never buy anything that Rupert Murdoch has anything to do with ever again. There's an old saying along the lines of 'you can't keep a good man down' - I fear it's even harder to keep a bad one down, which is why Mr. Murdoch will no doubt evade prosecution personally and re-emerge from the whole business completely spotless. Still, we can always hope that commonsense prevails and people stop supporting him and his empire. In the meantime here are a few words from Attila The Stockbroker (actually rather a lot of words, this is Attila after all!) on the subject - excellent!

Friday in Uxbridge saw The Good Old Boys playing at The General Elliot while Midnight were gigging across the road (literally!) at The Dolphin. This presented a situation that was too good not to take advantage of - your humble narrator (aided and abetted by Pete from Awaken, Roger from The Uppercut and the venerable East) journeyed back and forth between the two venues in an attempt to catch both bands, on a night perhaps best described as 'bass dep evening'. The Good Old Boys featured Bill on bass in place of Nick Simper while Midnight had Terry from The Uppercut on 4-string duties, and both bands sounded excellent to me, although how much of this had to do with the 'lets-have-a-quick-pint-here-and-then-go back-over-the-road' nature of the evening is difficult to ascertain. We finished up in The Dolphin where Simon and Darren of Ace! club fame were enjoying proceedings; Simon enjoyed it even more when I introduced him to Midnight keyboard player Chris Holmes who played in '60's cult heroes Timebox. Chris gave him a DVD of Timebox clips (I must get one of them myself!) as well as regaling us with tales of the likes of Mike Patto, Ollie Halsall and John Halsey. Great stuff.

Talking of depping I found myself in the wonderfully-named Preston Bagot (sounds like the name of a member of the House Of Lords that's just had his phone hacked doesn't it?) on Saturday evening for an Utter Madness gig. Tony's on vocals and Jon's on bass but aside from them it's deps all round - I'm on guitar (obviously!?!) while everyone else (Aaron on vocals and dancing, Dan on drums, Liz on saxophone and Dave on keyboards) are all from the ska covers band Big 10, and all of whom made a great job of what turned out to be a very enjoyable show. As Jon and myself pulled of junction 15 of the M40 Tony phoned to ask where we were; as I said 'just a few minutes away' the sat.nav. sent us off down the wrong road which we were unable to turn off for several miles.This was doubly unfortunate as we then were informed by Tony that we were supposed to be set up by 5.30 - we thought we had to arrive at 5.30 and were therefore late. Bugger! When we eventually arrived at The Crabmill we could set our gear up but were unable to soundcheck or rehearse anything as the guests were already arriving. It's a 50th birthday party for Andrew organised by his brother Steve - waitresses wearing t-shirts with the letters AFO and the words 'Alcohol Facilitation Operative' on them dispensed free drinks (always a dangerous thing with 2 1/2 hours to showtime!) and cheery smiles. Food on the other hand is thin on the ground for the band; eventually an AFO brings us several bags of very gratefully received crisps. Hot dogs appear not long before we're due on stage - when I look sad at the lack of a vegetarian option the crisp-bearing AFO brings me a spicy lentil sausage version. Excellent!

Andrew makes a short speech just before our set, explaining how an accident when he was 17 had left him confined to a wheelchair and how among the many things that it had affected in his life it made him realise that family and friends are more important than material processions and that it was 'great to see so many of you here tonight'. He handed over to us with the words 'Now let's get pissed!' - Tony was straight in with 'don't watch that...'

As we began 'One Step Beyond' I was suddenly aware that although I'd only done the show a few times that was a few times more than the majority of people on the stage. Situations like this can go either way - triumph and disaster are almost as likely as each other, and there's no telling which one you're heading for. This time it was the former rather than the latter, with everybody playing well and plenty of dancefloor action throughout. A chap repeatedly asked for 'Michael Caine' (sadly we didn't know it) but we managed 'Happy Birthday' at the start of our second set and judging by the comments we received in the interval and after the show it all went according to plan. A good gig all round.

And it was a good gig last night too, when The Load of Hay was host to Joseph Porter and Wob. I think I first met both gentlemen when The Price supported Blyth Power some 20-odd years ago - Joseph is the band's omnipresent songwriter and frontman and Wob was then playing guitar, a position that's held these days by Stephen Cooper who I met when I was gigging with T.V. Smith just before Christmas. It had been quite a hot sticky day which might have accounted for the low-ish (20 or so) audience turnout, but those who were there saw a fine show from both artists. They arrived just as I finished setting the P.A, system up which gave us plenty of time for soundchecking before Joseph asked the question 'do you know where I can buy some apples?' I directed him to a petrol station not far from the venue - he returned looking pleased with himself and with the words 'I can have these now so that I won't spend the gig burping into the microphone'. He's a brilliant songwriter although I don't recall having seen him play a solo show before - with some very funny and indeed thought provoking introductions the songs came over brilliantly in guitar-and-vocal format. Wob then gave a splendidly energetic performance which concluded with him walking around the audience singing 'Has Anybody Seen My Gal?' accompanying himself on a ukulele whilst attempting to cajole people into doing the Charleston. Strange but true. They then joined forces for a set of Joseph's songs to begin a highly enjoyable evening to a close. The only downside to the things were the 5 or 6 blokes at the bar who insisted on bellowing things like 'OOOH LOOK 'EE'S GOT 'IS BANJO AHT!' at every available opportunity. 'I see you've double booked the gig with a Mensa meeting' said East ruefully; I decided that they'd been drinking all day to mourn the loss of their favourite newspaper. Scandalous.

From Breakspear to Bethnal Green

And the obituary column continues - my mate Tony has died. I met him through Stuart the guitar repair man, he was a very clever chap, a bit of a boffin who worked at the BBC, played some guitar and liked motor sports among other things. Shirley and myself went to his funeral at Breakspear Crematorium last week and she realised that she knows his son Richard through her work. Stu tells me there might well be a memorial gig for him with donations to Cancer Research UK, and there's an interesting idea for people to play his guitars rather than their own. I'll do my very best to be at that one.

Talking of guitars (for once!) the excellent Steve Simpson (aided and abetted for some of the show by his brother Bruce on guitar and mandolin) gave a splendid performance at The Load of Hay last Sunday. He's playing some shows with the reformed Slim Chance in the not-too-distant future which should be well worth catching as well as continuing to play with Roger Chapman (we're thinking of playing the Family classic 'Burlesque' in The Upper Cut - Steve showed me the 'correct' way to play what is a very tricky song on guitar. Top man!) but it always seems to me that his solo shows are a chance for him to play what he wants rather than what he plays as part of someone else's act. Highlights were many and varied 'though I have to mention his version of the Meal Ticket song 'Golden Girl' (here is a recent version that also features fellow ex-Meal Ticket man Willy Finlayson - good song don't you think?) and the Bob Dylan song 'When I Paint My Masterpiece' as standout songs. A fine performance.

Sunday night gigs for the rest of the year feature the wonderful Kris Dollimore this coming Sunday (21st) then The Upper Cut 'pre-Christmas / Terry the bassman's birthday' gig on December 5th followed by the legend that is John Otway on December 12th - that's not a bad line-up is it? And my fellow blogger and Blue Five member Voltarol is on the radio at 8.45 tomorrow evening playing some of his beloved Brazilian music - click here to join him!

An interesting Wednesday saw your humble narrator accompany Stuart the guitar repair man (him again! - now there's a name that's been absent from these hallowed pages for a while; remind me to tell you why sometime...) to Westmount Music, a new instrument shop in Marlow Bottom. Paul the boss seems a nice chap, and the shop's an interesting mix of stuff so let's hope they can make a go of it. I was left thinking was that they should play some music or show some DVD's in the shop as the atmosphere was a bit 'cold' although maybe that was just me? In the meantime it was off to visit Miles (a longtime customer of Stu's who features in this posting among others) where we dropped a guitar off and where I, after a look at his rather mind-boggling collection of instruments, somehow ended up taking one of his guitars back with me with a view to possibly buying it off him. How did that happen? 'Try it at your gig on Saturday' said he cheerily. Ok, I will... from there we made our way to a farmhouse near Cobham for a visit to Electric Wood, the home of Wal bass guitars. Stu worked for them a few years ago, and Paul the luthier had asked him to come across to have a look at a MIDI bass that wasn't working properly - while he looked at that I spent a bit of time in the spray booth where a badly damaged 1959 Gibson Les Paul Special was being refinished. All very interesting stuff - no, really, it was. Well, I liked it!

The Good Old Boys returned to The General Elliot in Uxbridge on Friday evening, and gave a suitably boisterous performance in front of a suitably boisterous audience. The twin guitar attack of Pete and Simon sounded as excellent as ever, Hud and Nick didn't put a foot wrong all night and Alan sang as well as I've ever heard him - and if you ever wanted to see Nick Simper play 'Hush' then here's your chance. Afterwards East and myself ended up discussing life, the universe and everything with Hud, who regaled us with tales of touring Christian venues in America with Rick Wakeman and much more besides. As I stumbled off homewards at (gulp!) 2.30 a.m. I said something along the lines of 'I've got to be in Balcony Shirts in 6 1/2 hours' (well, that's what I intended to say; it probably sounded more like 'I'f gotta being Bacony Shirs in sis anna haf ours'. Mind you, East understood me although we can only wonder what his reply of 'Warrghh!' was actually intended to be...) and realised that maybe, just maybe, we should have left when the band finished at midnight as we'd originally intended...

Considering the previous evening's antics Saturday at Balcony Shirts could have been a lot more difficult than it turned out to be, although judging by the increase in customers Christmas is definitely on the horizon - mind you I did have to have a sleep pretty much as soon as I got home. All this 'getting older' stuff isn't all that it's cracked up to be I can tell you... still it was back to The Misty Moon in Bethnal Green for the latest Upper Cut gig, and a very enjoyable one it was too - we went on after the boxing for 2 well-received sets with much dancing and general jollity, although I did wonder what was going on when a large chap walked past carrying a tall blonde lady over his shoulder... I used Miles's guitar for the first set and mine for the second - the general consensus was mine sounded better (it should, it's a lot more expensive!) but that the other one could be a good addition to my guitar army. Oh well - there go the wages. Again. Perhaps I should sell something first... hmm... I'll have a think over the next few days...

Happy Halloween!

Another blog posting, another death to report - this is getting depressing! However I can't let Reg King of mod legends The Action leave the building without a show of respect in these hallowed pages. I've just played the 'Action Packed' compilation CD and can only join the likes of Monkey Picks in lauding him as one of, if not the greatest, British soul singers. If you're not familiar with him or the band then (a) shame on you from a great height, and (b) have a listen to 'I'll Keep On Holding On' and 'Since I Lost My Baby' and see what you think - you are very unlikely to be disappointed. Another very sad loss to the music world.

Friday evening saw an ever-improving Upper Cut play The Dolphin in Uxbridge. We appeared there back in the summer at Horsepower Hairdressing supremo Adam's birthday party, and reaction among the locals was positive enough for Noel the guv'nor to offer us a date in our own right. In an ongoing quest to decide which is the best guitar for me to use in the band I'd opted for my Relic Stratocaster this time (I've been using the SG for most of our gigs although the FMT Telecaster has made a few appearances) which took a bit of getting used to from my point of view, although by the end of the first set it seemed to be making sense so maybe I've found the right one for the band. I've always tried to avoid changing guitars during gigs if possible especially in small pub gigs - there's often no stage which makes any instrument vulnerable to being knocked over by passing punters, so having more than one out increases the risk - and while it's very difficult to find one guitar that'll cover the material that a band like our plays the Strat seems to be the closest one yet. I'll try it at again at next month's Bethnel Green bash and see how it sounds then. In the meantime our 2 sets caused an increasingly good reaction from the assembled audience, and a euphoric Noel offered us a return date next year. Excellent! And once again Pete from Awaken joined us for a couple of numbers - he's playing there with his band on the 26th of next month so maybe I'll get up and do a couple of songs with them that night.

Back in September a commercial to raise funds and awareness for this year's poppy appeal was filmed in Windsor Street in Uxbridge. Some (actually rather scary) soldiers marched up and down the street as your humble narrator and the rest of the Balcony Shirts team (they were filming right outside the shop) joined the locals in forming a mock-Remembrance Day parade. In a moment of amusement / madness Scott and Dave attempted a high-five (I believe that's what the young people call it - and no I didn't join in, not least because I kept doing it wrong!) every time the camera panned across the shop. It's perhaps for the best that none of these gestures are visible in the finished article, which you can see if you click here - the shop in the background as the main character stand on the mini-roundabout looking around. Which reminds me - I must buy a poppy. Well, you should shouldn't you?

As mentioned last time it was the first anniversary of the Balcony shop opening yesterday, and myself and Scott spent the first hour of our day putting up balloons and the rest of it dispensing cake and Cava to the customers and selling an inordinate amount of stock, much of it at reduced prices. We took delivery of a Danelectro Pro earlier in the week - judging by the amount of attention it's been receiving it won't be in the shop too long, and it's great to see the musical equipment side of the shop developing so quickly. And given the success of the day there's a good chance of mince pies in the shop in the run up to Christmas...

No gigs now for 2 weeks. I wish I was doing the '80's Rocked' shows. Actually I wish I was doing any shows. Boo hoo. Then again Shirley and myself are celebrating 6 years together today - yes I know, on Halloween! We've spent the afternoon at The Westfield Shopping Centre, buying all sorts of things that we didn't know that we needed. Ahhh...

Turn the volume up, turn the temperature down

And so the heatwave continues, and the same people that were moaning that it was too cold a few months ago are now moaning that it's too hot. Oh well, I suppose it gives them something to do. Maybe I should start?

Mind you it was hot last night. Really hot. I don't actually remember the last time I was so hot on stage - there was a moment during 'Green Onions' that I went to move up the neck during my solo and the palm of my left hand stuck to the back of the guitar neck, causing an extremely peculiar set of notes to emerge. I'd like to think it gave my solo an avant-garde flavour, but I think it was actually just out of tune. Mind you the same thing happened during my 'Sweet Home Chicago' solo so at least there's a chance that it was starting to sound deliberate - that said by then there was so much sweat on the lenses of my glasses that I could hardly see where I was intending to play. See how I suffer for my art? And see how the audience suffers in return? Actually the audience were a game bunch, bravely occupying the dancefloor for much of our 90 minute sweat-fest, at a benefit evening for The Johnson Community Hospital held at The Castle Sports Centre in Spalding. Well to be pedantic we were actually playing in a tent inside the sports centre, a set-up that no doubt contributed to the temperature on and indeed offstage. Steve was on drums, Neil played Jake for the first time in 18 months (he did it really well too) and Steve was on trumpet for a show that contained a version of that well known Blues Brothers classic 'Long Train Running' that was described by Squirrel after the show as 'the strangest that I've ever played'. It was probably the strangest that I've ever played too. Still they all kept dancing so it can't have been that bad. Hopefully.

Friday night was a hot one too, at The General Eliott in Uxbridge where a rare-ish 4 piece line up of The Good Old Boys (Alan on vocals, Nick on bass, Pete on guitar and Richard on drums - find out more about them here) played 2 rockin 'n' rollin' sets to an appreciative audience. Alan seemed fully recovered from a recent leg operation, Nick and Richard were as solid as ever and Pete put aside a technical problem in the first set ('I set up too quickly and didn't plug a lead in properly') to deliver some splendid solos. I felt they missed the extra guitar here and there (Simon was off gigging elsewhere and as Alan put it, 'there's not much room in these little pubs so we thought we'd keep it as a 4 piece') but it was great to see them play. Then again, it usually is.

Thursday night didn't seem to be quite so hot, but it was a very strange gig all the same - following on from our show at Le QuecumBar in Battersea earlier this year one of the oddest line up's of The Chicago Blues Brothers Band made another appearance, at Cambridge Cottage in Kew Gardens. Matt and Mike are Jake and Elwood, Richard's on sax and I'm on guitar with backing tracks providing the rest of the accompaniment, at an evening for the Hillingdon Hospital Consultants Association. So far so good, but now the fun starts - there's a volume restriction device in the room we're playing in, and it's set at a very low (make that VERY low!) 85 decibels. How low is 85 decibels? The short answer is 'very', but as this chart shows, it's actually not much louder than a telephone dialing tone. Yes you read that bit right. And what happens if we exceed 85db? The power gets cut for 20 seconds. Bugger! While we're setting up we realise that we can quite easily shout loudly enough to cause the power to be cut, and all ask questions like 'why do they bother with live music here at all?' to little or no avail. The staff are as helpful but there's an air of 'we don't normally have people like you in here' about proceedings - well, I thought there was anyway. After setting up Mike, Matt and myself (Richard arrived around 8.30 as he was busy elsewhere) went over to The Coach And Horses Hotel to meet up with Simon Small who's a mate of Matt's and who I've depped for several times in Mario's Blues Brothers show but have never actually met - we've talked on the phone but fairly obviously are never on the same gig together! Suitably refreshed it's back to the venue for some food and to await the call to arms. We play a 50-ish minute set which understandably never really gets going from our point of view - the power goes of during the first song and it's a struggle from then on in, with Richard and the BB's eventually using unplugged microphones and myself scratching away on barely audible guitar. Then again there was much merriment from the audience and, incredibly, enquiries for band bookings so I suppose it all went well - I always feel like we haven't done our jobs properly in circumstances like this, but I guess it's the audience reaction that's important and they all seemed very happy with things. Oh well - time for me to start moaning about the weather then...