The director's cut

I was saddened by the news that Ken Russell has died, aged 84. Always a controversial figure, he turned the already reasonably bonkers story of 'Tommy' into one of the maddest films any of us are ever likely to see; mind you most of his films managed to annoy people in one way or another, but it always seemed to me that said people either wanted to be annoyed, or indeed deserved to be annoyed by them. In these days of mediocrity we are sadly unlikely to see his like again, which is a great shame.

On a lighter note I had an absolutely splendid time on Music Scene Investigation last night - Tom, Ian and Rich were all on good form and I managed to ramble on about all sorts of things for what seemed like ages. If you'd like to see the show then click here but be warned - I've got those big headphones on again, and I still can't hear the bass... I could definitely hear the bass at The Load Of Hay where I managed to catch the last few numbers from Pimp My Jazz who feature Terry from The Uppercut on said instrument - you can always hear him! From what I saw an heard the band sounded tighter and more together than their first show there back in June (which was their debut gig) and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here. It's The Undersound this Sunday 4th, then The Uppercut on December 18th - come on down, as someone once said...

Time for another Ruts D.C. gig supporting The Alabama 3, this one on Saturday at The Academy in Bristol. The Static Jacks started the evening, and from what I saw of them they started it very well indeed; they certainly got the energy level up and got a lot of attention in the rapidly-filling venue. We walked out onto the stage to a fair amount of applause (and at least one shout for 'Babylon's Burning' - we finished the show with it) and played a tighter set than in Manchester, with audience reaction building up to the extent that we probably could have done an encore. It's good when that happens! Both Dave and Segs seemed to be pleased by the way things went for us, which bodes well for this week's shows in Bournemouth and London. And I managed to see most of the Alabama 3's set, and very good it was too.

It was my first Uppercut gig for what feels like ages on Friday, at The Half Moon in Harrow. The gig was originally supposed to feature Awaken who have since broken up in the interim period between booking the gig and now leaving guitarist Pete (who deps for me in The Uppercut when I'm elsewhere) with a gig but no band. Rather splendidly he suggested that we could do the show, which I'm pleased to say that our new friend Hetty (who books the gigs at the venue - she's Ginger Baker's daughter! Really!) thought was a good idea. To repay Pete's generosity in putting us up for the gig we invited him to come along to play a few songs with us, and with this in mind he and I got together on Thursday evening to see what songs would sound good with two guitars rather than one. In no time at all we'd written ten or so songs on a piece of paper - at which point we decided that we'd done enough work and went down the pub. It could all have gone tragically wrong at this point, but it actually went very right indeed (I wouldn't have been writing about it here if it had been terrible!) with Pete ending up playing with us for most of the evening, dep drummer Geoff excelling himself and Hetty offering us three gigs in the new year. As I said earlier, it's good when that happens!

More gigs this week, then it all get worryingly quiet...

Enemy of the state

I'd originally intended to write an overview of my '11-gigs-in-9-days' but reading back over the 'daily bulletins' as I rather pretentiously called them (they're not quite daily but they're not far off!) I haven't really got too much to add, other than to say that maybe I should try writing short daily postings more often as they seem to me to capture things in a way that longer pieces don't - or is that just me? Anyway the gigs were mostly good and often great, the mood was generally upbeat and I can't think of many better ways to spend my time. I'm a simple soul aren't I?

Meanwhile back in the real-ish world I've been working in Balcony Shirts for most of this week, spending a fair bit of time writing copy for the new shirts appearing on the website. Unlike here where I can ramble on for pretty much as long as I like on any subject I like (I bet you'd never have guessed that eh?) I've only got 100-150 words per shirt to play with which makes it quite tricky sometimes, particularly when you consider that for search engine optimisation (no I didn't know what it was either!) I'm obliged to include certain words - have a look at the new shirts on the site and see if you can work out which they are! In the meantime I had a visit in the shop from my mate Dave who's just returned from working in China, and who tells me that when he tried to access these hallowed pages while he was over there he was unable to as they're considered to be 'subversive material'. Have you any idea how happy this makes me? Excellent! (Yeah I know it's probably blogging in general rather than mine in particular that it frowned upon as it can't be regulated - but allow me a moment of glory why don't you?!) I wonder what they'd make of the excellent Monkey Picks blog of 'revues and indulgence' (his term not mine, though I wish I'd thought of it!) which is written by a near relative of one of the Balcony boys - recent posts include a visit to a scary East End shop, a revue of Ginger Baker's autobiography and a 'Your Best Bob Dylan Album Calculator' (click here and have a go! It tells me that mine is 'Highway 61 Revisited' although I nearly ended up with 'Bringing It All Back Home' - it obviously works!) which gives a good cross-section of what Monkey sees and Monkey do's...

Talking of subversive material (of a sort) I finally go round to watching the first two episodes of the (ahem) 're-imagining' of 'The Prisoner', and very ordinary it was too - something that could never be said of the original '60's series. It was so ordinary that I nodded off during the second show - Patrick McGoohan must be spinning in his grave.

'Oil City Confidential' received it's U.K. T.V premiere last week on BBC Four (it's out on DVD in June - hurrah!) although discerning folk like myself who have already seen it would have been more excited by the re-broadcast of a 'Sight and Sound In Concert' that featured The Feelgoods alongside the then up-and-coming Ian Dury and The Blockheads. Mr. Dury had the look of a man who wasn't going to let his moment pass him by whilst although Dr. Feelgood were terrific you got the feeling that they were trying a bit too hard for the cameras - then again it can't have been easy to follow what had gone before... I remember watching it all the time and it was great to see it again after all these years, but I wonder how many more items like this are lying in the vaults, and maybe more to the point how many have sadly been lost forever. Let's hope they re-broadcast the Tom Robinson Band show next!

No gigs this week as observed in the previous posting (although mad as it may sound I nearly ended up playing in Bucharest on Thursday - then again nearly isn't nearly enough is it?) but I did have a rehearsal with the mighty T.V. Smith on Wednesday afternoon - I'm playing three shows up in Yorkshire with him next month (full details on his website) and since one of them is at his annual 'Earthbound' fan convention we're learning quite a few songs that I've not played with him before. It should be fine gathering... and I might not be gigging myself this weekend but I am going to see Iggy And The Stooges - now that's something to look forward to!