Jam yesterday (and maybe next month too)

Let's continue with the sad stuff - Dave Beal has died. I hadn't seen him for a few years, but remember him very well from his days promoting in Rayners Lane back in the 1990s. Along with Pete Feenstra and the late George McFall he worked tirelessly to promote live music in and around London - often in the face of no little adversity - and latterly he'd been involved with Club Ska as well as working with Los Pacaminos. I'll remember him as being a wonderfully enthusiastic man, whether he was expounding the virtues of the latest band that he'd booked to play or talking passionately about his beloved birdwatching, of which he had the most extraordinarily detailed knowledge. I'll also remember him as being a very nice guy.

Time for the first Flying Squad gig of the year, supporting The Clashed at Tropic At Ruislip on Friday night. I saw The Clashed at the same venue last year when they played with The Pistols - this show was better than that one, a 1 1/2 hour set that spanned the whole of The Clash's amazing career. They've still got things the wrong way round (the little chap in the middle sings like Mick, the tall chap on the end sings like Joe) but they made a good job of some very tricky material - it's hard to go from punk to funk and back again via reggae and rock but I thought they did it well. And even though I say so myself The Flying Squad played a very good show, with everyone on top form and a great audience reaction. We're back there in December supporting Dr. Feelgood which should be a very interesting evening, not least because we'll be obliged to learn an almost completely new set of songs - after all, we can hardly play 'She Does It Right' and 'Back In the Night' now can we?

The rest of the weekend saw two shows with Big Al Reed, the first of which was at The Royal Oak in Knowl Hill. It's a year since John the landlord first took the pub over, and comedian Adga Brown was also on the bill. Gigs with Al are always good fun if a little nerve-racking from my point of view since there's no telling what song Al's going to call up next - still it keeps me on my toes, as they say. Barring the odd 'how does this one go?' moment it was a good show, as was the gig at The Feathers in Chalfont St. Giles yesterday afternoon, which was distinguished by Al's mate Ekkie making an unannounced appearance with us by walking in through the front door playing saxophone, and the amusing (not to say astonishing) sight of Al's 84 year old mum dancing to several songs. I hope I'm as fit as she is at her age. Actually I hope I make it to her age at all!
We finished our last song around 7.30pm; after packing our gear away in record time we arrived at The Swan in Iver an hour or so later, where an open mic night was in full swing. Now I've always shied away from events such as this - the idea of jamming (maaan!) has always struck me as being far too hippie-ish for an old punk like myself to get involved in, although there are a lot of jam nights taking place these days and I'm often told that they're generally good fun and well worth going along to. This one is run by John who's an accomplished musician and guitar builder, and who has been cajoling me into coming along for quite a while. So it was then that Al and myself (accompanied by Tony on bass and Mark on drums) performed two songs which went down well enough for us to be asked to perform three more at the end of the session, the landlady approached Al with an offer of a gig, and I had a chat with the legend that is Les Payne - good stuff all round. I can't see myself seeking out too many similar events (although I suppose you never know - after all, plenty of people do!) but I enjoyed playing and I'll be making an effort to attend the next session (it takes place on the first Sunday of every month) on October 7th. 

In the meantime I'm playing at The Proms in Hyde Park this weekend - now that's a sentence that I never thought I'd ever type...

Back on the streets

Well my phone didn't ring, but as the computer clock clicked over to 14.50 'City Of The Dead' by The Clash was playing on the Balcony iPod. No really it was... and how sad is it that Gary Moore has died. I saw him play a few times, notably at the '50th Anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster concert in 2004 at the Wembley Arena where his version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Red House' stood out among an evening of standout performances. He was a fine musician who always gave 100% to every show - no, every note - and he's a great loss to the World of the electric guitar.

Talking of electric guitar - the absence of gigs for your humble narrator means that there's been chance to get out and see a few gigs in the last week or so, although oddly enough most of them have been at The Half Moon in Harrow. Last Friday (the 4th in case you're taking notes) Awaken played a fine show in front of an enthusiastic audience that even managed a bit of dancing in the second set; all such behaviour stopped during the 2 songs that I played with them (since you've asked they were 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Hard To Handle' - Pete has offered to get a longer guitar strap for me if I borrow his guitar again!) but I enjoyed myself all the same. Saturday I met the aforementioned Pete at the venue to catch the riskily-named Beaver (do your own punchline!) powering through 2 sets of harder rocking material than the previous night had featured, but no less entertaining all the same. I've known Clint the guitarist since my days in Pro Music (remind me to tell you what happened there one day... actually someone said to me the other day that 'no one goes there now that you don't work there as it's staffed by kids that don't know what they're talking about'. Surely that can't be true - can it?!?) and he's a fine player - he wasn't too happy with his performance as he had an ear infection and couldn't hear out of his right ear (I know the feeling!) but I thought he played well. I must try to catch the band again.

Wednesday evening I was down at The Load of Hay in Uxbridge to set the P.A. up for David Ferrard; it was a show organised by some Brunel University people (I never did really find out what was going on!) and when I got there around 7.45 they were pretty much ready for the show to start - maybe the students all go to sleep earlier these days? After a (very) quick set-up David performed 2 sets of folky originals mixed with a few Robert Burns songs (the students didn't seemed to have heard of him!) and American traditional numbers reflecting David's Scottish and American heritage. In true folk club tradition there were a few floor spots (where an audience member gets up and does a song or two) including a couple from Brunel lecturers whose prowess behind the microphone clearly caught their students unaware. A good gig - and the Acts Less Ordinary gigs start there again on Sunday 27th February with The Noisy Boys (as one local wit put it, 'they are neither noisy, nor are they boys...') with more to follow. With that in mind myself and East retired to the bar after David's show to discuss the possibility of a Price show there in the not-too-distant future - yes, we could be going to do it again just one more time...

One of the latest batch of Balcony Shirts proudly states 'Real Men Bake Bread'. In a moment of inspiration Scott (it's his design) came up with the idea of writing a song that would teach the listener how to make their own loaf (he does things like that!) which meant that first thing on Saturday morning Balcony Shirts became Balcony Studios as your humble narrator sat behind the counter of the The Custom Bar recording his Telecaster onto Scott's Pro Tools equipped laptop. The plan is to make a video to go with it, put it on YouTube and, well, take over the World. It sounded good so why not? Well, realistically there are any number of reasons why not, but I'll let you know how we get on. The day turned out to be a busy one, with probably the most unusual request coming from a young lady who had a t-shirt made to wear on an upcoming episode of 'Total Wipeout' - on the front it said 'THE BOY BASHER', on the back 'IS BACK' and I for one wasn't about to wind her up.

For the evening it was back to The Half Moon in Harrow to see The Bolaji Blues Band. Ken from Awaken is on bass and I've known guitarists Danny and Dave for quite a while but had never managed to catch the band before - I arrived just as they were starting their first number 'Worried Life Blues'. They sounded good and they're all excellent musicians, but I found that most if not all of the solos (and therefore the songs) went on rather too long for my liking. As I say the playing was terrific (the keyboard player hadn't played with them before - you'd never have known) and at it's best it all sounded fabulous - but at other times it reminded me why I like punk rock so much. Then again I found out later that they normally have a saxophone player who couldn't make the gig so they extended the guitar and keyboard solos to make up time so maybe I should stop moaning... Pete from Awaken got up with them for the last 2 numbers and to my surprise they invited me too get up too, but I declined the offer - I'd had far too much to drink by then! It turned out to be a good decision as they then played 'Rambling Man' - I'd definitely had to much to drink to get that one right!

No drinking last night (well, not too much!) as it was time for a gig with The Ali Mac Band at The Bulls Head in Barnes. The last few gigs with Ali and co. have been in an extended format, but this time I joined the standard line-up of Ali on vocals, Bill on bass, Hud on drums and Simon on guitar - I've depped for Simon with Bill and Hud before but this was the first time we've all played together. When Ali told me about the gig I was keen to be involved as George McFall had run The Stormy Monday Blues Club there for many years; it was the first time that I'd been back there since his untimely death last year and I wasn't the only person who kept expecting him to walk in... it being Valentine's Day there weren't too many people in attendance, but those who were there saw an excellent performance. Ali sang well, Bill and Hud were as solid as the proverbial rock, and Simon and myself must have been doing something right as we were getting applause after each guitar solo. That's never happened to me before! A great gig all round.

Back down to Earth - no gigs this week. Bah...

Bye George

George McFall died yesterday. He was 62 years old. Through his work promoting gigs at venues in and around London he was a tirelessly enthusiastic supporter of live music in it's various forms, and, most importantly, was a very nice guy. I last saw him at The Ali Mac Band gig at The Bulls Head in Barnes back in August, where he recommended an upcoming Pat McManus gig in Ruislip; when I said that I'd do my best to get along and that Shirley might come with me he smiled - 'the glamour quota of the evening will go up by 100%'...

Thanks for doing it George - we'll all miss you.