Adam raised a Cain

Another rock casualty - Michael Davis of The MC5 has died. Like The Stooges, The New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground the MC5 are a band that were derided when they first appeared in the 1960s but that were later held up as heroes by the punk rock fraternity in the 1970s. One listen to anything from 'Kick Out The Jams', 'Back In The U.S.A.' or 'High Time' will show why their radical politics and their association with the likes of John Sinclair meant that the American establishment marked them out as enemies at the time of their release. Their extraordinary combination of anger, frustration and intelligence make them some of the most remarkable rock records of all time, and Michael Davis made a hugely valuable contribution to them. Click here for an amazing clip of the band playing live in 1970 - that, my friends, is rock 'n' roll...

In the meantime it's been another gig-less weekend for your humble narrator, although I did spend Sunday with F.B.I. Band / Utter Madness keyboard maestro Richard Whennell recording guitars on two tracks for Glee Club UK. There wasn't a lot of rock 'n' roll rebellion in the tracks in question (since you've asked they were 'We Built This City' by Starship and 'You're The Inspiration' by Chicago) but it was still a hugely enjoyable experience, and a real challenge to attempt to recreate the guitar parts on the original recordings. I'm not sure that I was completely accurate but even though I say so myself it sounded pretty good by the end of the session. Let's hope it still does!

Thankfully I've got some gigs this coming weekend (thank Gawd!) so I can't sit here talking to you as I've got songs to learn - but in the meantime it's my Dad's 80th birthday today and I'm off to see him. I've considered writing a hopelessly over-emotional, intensely personal account of our relationship here in these hallowed pages, but have decided to just say that more than ever I realise that I wouldn't be the person that I am today (for better or worse!) if it wasn't for the way he and my Mum bought me (and indeed my brother Terry) up. They could be hard on us sometimes which at the time seemed difficult to understand but nowadays makes a lot more sense. He remains a tough man, albeit with a somewhat softer centre these days, which is no bad thing if you think about it.

I've bought him a framed Heggarty coat of arms - in doing so I've discovered that our family motto is 'they neither bend nor change'. That'll do for me, and I suspect it'll do for him too. Happy birthday Dad.

Ska-diff!

My last gig of 2011 was with Utter Madness in Cardiff headlining The Calennig New Year celebrations. It's a yearly event (obviously!) held outside The City Hall - the band played it back in 2001 when according to Ian the saxman there was 'horizontal rain' and freezing temperatures; he suggested 'a hat, long coat, fingerless gloves if you've got them' as stage wear... in the event the temperature was a lot higher than freezing and the rain had stopped earlier in the evening. Good!

We'd soundchecked at 5 pm - lots of echo from the cold concrete in front of us. 'Don't worry' said Matt the stage manager, 'there should be thousands of people here by midnight'. And there was - when I left the stage with my amp and guitar after the show an impressively long conga line was. er, congaing to 'Enjoy Yourself' by The Specials. And why not?

We were all staying at The Holiday Inn (I dread to think how much 7 rooms on New Year's Eve cost the organisers!) where food was served at 7.30; as I made my way up to room 329 Batman and Robin were haranguing guests in the bar while scantily-clad young ladies mused on the festivities to come. I got changed for the show then met everyone (Tony on vocals, Jon on bass, Dan on drums, Richard on keyboards, Ray on vocals and the afore-mentioned Ian on sax) in the lobby to head back to the City Hall. When we arrived Botown were halfway through their set; they mix soul classics with Bollywood songs which is an interesting idea although the audience reaction generally consisted of recognition for the soul song ('Sex Machine' for example) and confusion for the Bollywood song (sadly I've no idea of the title) that it morphed into. The massed dancing and singing along that accompanied their last number 'Valerie' was all dissipated by 30 or so seconds into the unidentified song that it became. Like I say it's an interesting idea but I'm not sure how it will work in practical terms, although now that I've said that they'll no doubt now sell millions.

'Don't watch that, watch this!' Tony started 'One Step Beyond' to a huge cheer from the rapidly-swelling crowd; I dropped my plectrum a few seconds into the song which suggested that my hands may well have been colder than I thought that they were. I wonder if my moment of madness (sorry!) was seen on the big screens that were either side of the stage? It's probably on YouTube by now... (well if it is I haven't found it yet - but I did find this!) As the clock at the side of the stage showed 6 minutes of 2011 left we swung into 'Baggy Trousers' - when the song ended we downed tools as chap from S4C and the compare (sorry I didn't catch either of their names) came on stage and counted down alternately in English and Welsh; fireworks heralded the start of 2012 as band members made good use of their mobile phone cameras. It all went out live on TV - you can see it here on the S4C website for the next month, we're on from about 16 minutes into the clip and the picture you can see me taking at midnight is the one at the start of this posting. Really!

We came back on to a jammed version of 'Auld Lang Syne' (I found this and the countdown on YouTube too - there are more clips appearing all the time!) and few more songs before 'Our House' ended a great gig. I'm told there were around 10,000 people there at midnight - now that definitely counts as a happy new year! I hope you have one too.

'This could be the last time' - until next time...

I found out on Friday morning if I'd managed to learn 'Livin On A Prayer' well enough when I joined Glee Club U.K. supremo Richard in his Bracknell recording studio to record the guitar parts. Richard spent a fair amount of time attempting to recreate the talkbox effect that's used on the guitar during the first half of the original recording (I didn't have one handy!) and did a very good job; I used my Relic Stratocaster as I needed a guitar with a tremelo arm for one section of the song (in case you're wondering, it's the 'divebomb' effect halfway through the second verse - I very rarely use one, to the extent that when I came to practice that part I couldn't find it!) and even though I say so myself, it all turned out rather well. Mind you I wouldn't be writing about it here if I'd played terribly...

Saturday evening I went to The Old Fox in Ickenham to see Awaken, and a very odd evening it was too - when I arrived they were halfway through their first set, with a young man slumped unconscious in his seat near the front door and beery builder blokes alternating between ignoring the music completely and slapping each other around the face roaring 'you're my best mate you are' before dancing with each other. The band played a good set but not a great one, seeming a bit out of sorts and committing a setlist faux pas of monumental proportions when they switched from playing material like 'Brown Sugar' and 'I Saw Her Standing There' to a version of 'I Predict A Riot' that cleared the dancefloor in seconds, an incident that somehow summed the evening up for me. So down was I when I got home that I had to watch the Henry Rollins interview from the 'Punk: Attitude' DVD to get my spirits back up - it worked, but that's punk rock for you...

...which brings me to The Price. Malcolm called me mid-afternoon to say that he was halfway to the venue and had forgotten his microphones - as he put it during the show, 'it wouldn't be a Price gig if something didn't go wrong' - and there were the almost inevitable 'sorry I can't make it' messages from various people throughout the day but from the opening of 'Memory' (we hadn't played that one this century!) to the last unrehearsed encores of 'Too Many People' and 'Turning Japanese' it was one of the best and most enjoyable reunion shows that we've done. We were bit scrappy here and there (we had just one 3 hour rehearsal for a 1 1/2 hour show! Mind you that doesn't explain my appallingly out of tune solo at the end of 'The Price You Pay'...) but overall we played well, even including a new song (so new that it doesn't have a title yet!) put together in about 20 minutes from an idea that Malcolm bought in to the rehearsal - you could argue that we'd have used our limited time better by learning the old songs properly, but The Price always did things like that! Plenty of old faces gave us a rousing reception, and it was great to see a few people that hadn't been along for ages; sadly with band members ever more committed to other things it seems that events like this will get more and more difficult to organize which is a shame - still there's always the Sunday nearest to East's birthday next year... talking of whom, I left the man himself outside a kebab shop bemoaning the fact that they weren't serving anymore. I think he'd been drinking...

And The Flying Squad return to show business this coming Saturday (26th) when we support the ever-wondrous Eddie And The Hot Rods at Tropic At Ruislip - we're rehearsing at 4 in the afternoon and on at 8 in the evening!!

Devon is a place on Earth (sorry!)

...and I just about got them learned, for a show depping with Utter Madness at Seaton Town Hall in Devon on Saturday night. I'd received an e-mail from Tony (vocals) a couple of weeks ago asking if I'd be available for the gig - I replied that I was, but then heard nothing. When I asked Ian (saxophone) about it at The Hilton gig last month he said something like 'oh yes, it's on, but that's all I know about it'. I eventually got another e-mail from Tony last Wednesday evening with the venue details, set list (2 x 45 minute sets, with several songs that I'd not played before - gulp!) and a musing along the lines of 'our drummer's got a slipped disc so if I can't find a replacement then we'll have to blow the gig out'. Thankfully a drummer was found (well, put it this way - I didn't hear that the gig was off!) and when myself and Jon (bass) arrived everything was set up and ready to go. After saying hello to regular keyboard man Richard (more about him later) I met Dan (drums) and Aaron (backing vocals, depping for Ray who normally handles the Chas Smash role in the band) for the first time. They're both in ska covers band Big 10 and from the first moments of the soundcheck it was obvious that they knew exactly what they were doing, and with everything sounding good a fine evening was in prospect.

Showtime is 8.30 so there's time for some chips and a couple of drinks before we made our way to the stage. From the moment I picked up my guitar it was obvious that something was wrong - high-pitched, almost ultrasonic feedback meant that a hearing aid loop had been switched on in the venue. We asked for it to be switched off, and a couple of numbers in that seemed to have happened, but it was clearly switched back on during the interval and remained on for the rest of the show, making my job trickier than it might have been - I had to make sure I turned my guitar volume down in between the songs, and be careful not to face my amplifier during the songs. Still none of this seemed to bother the audience who behaved as though it was the real Madness on stage, with much dancing and merriment throughout. I managed to start 'Special Brew' in the wrong key (yes, I know it's not a Madness song - the band added several songs by the likes of Bad Manners and The Beat to the set) which caused first shock and then amusement among band members - remind me to check that next time!

Much of Sunday was spent recovering from getting in around 3 a.m., as well as still feeling a bit out of sorts after the Zurich journey - recovery was so much easier when I was younger! Still it was a cracking evening at The Load of Hay, where the ever-wonderful Kris Dollimore gave another astonishing performance which showcased material from his new album 'No Ghosts In This House' alongside the established favourites. Highlights were many and varied although his version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Castles Made Of Sand' has to be seen and indeed heard to be believed. All of this in front of 20 or so people - if I hear one more person moaning that they've got 'nothing to do', 'nowhere to go' or that there's 'nothing happening locally' then I fear I will do something that will result in me ending up in prison... on a lighter note it Kris told me a couple of excellent stories, about working with Adam Ant, (Kris told him that he liked his jacket - when the tour was over Adam sent him it!) about how Johnny Thunders was playing Kris's Zemaitis guitar when he started to have a coughing fit ('I thought he was going to die while he was playing my guitar!') and how Dee Dee Ramone once phoned him up in his mum and dad's kitchen - a much funnier story than it would sound written here, honest!

After a busy Monday in the shop (don't forget to have a look at our 'bread song' video here - over 2,000 views so far!) it was time for The Price to return to Ruff Rockers for a rehearsal for this Sunday's gig. We've not played together since last May (the story why is on our website forum) and it took us a while to get going again but after a few songs we were starting to sound like a band again. Memories were strained as we attempted to remember some of the less obvious songs from our back catalogue, and there should be a couple of surprises in the show. Let's hope they're not surprises to us...

More rehearsing on Tuesday, this time with T.V. Smith. We're playing at The 100 Club on April 16th (I've never played there before - excellent!) and with his new album 'Coming In To Land' going to be available for the first time on the night we're going to be playing several songs from it - not sure how many yet, but we ran through a few to see what would and wouldn't work. He gave me an advance copy of the album to work from, it's playing in the background as I type this and it sounds absolutely excellent - I'm off to do my homework on the songs before getting together with him prior to the gig. In the meantime he's on tour in Britain playing a set of Adverts songs backed by Italian punksters The Valentines which should be unmissable. So don't miss it!

In the evening it was off to the Academy in Oxford to see The Stranglers with support coming from Wilko Johnson. Not a bad bill don't you think? As I found myself a vantage point in preparation for Wilko taking to the stage a cheery chap asked me what the first band had been called - I said that we should be able to get the name of the front of the bass drum when the kit gets carried off, as it was obscured by a monitor speaker at the front of the stage... ah there we are, Mike Marlin. The cheery chap said that he thought they were brilliant, one of the best bands he'd seen in ages - I decided not to tell him that I thought they'd been almost unspeakably bad, a tuneless sub-hippie dirge with a singer who should just stop trying to be a singer and a band who put so little into their performance that not one of them appeared to break sweat despite being under stage lights and all hearing hats, scarfs and jackets, and who all sounded so dull that they wouldn't have noticed if you'd blown the venue up around them; instead I just said 'Wilko Johnson's on in a minute, see what you think of him'. Well I don't know what he thought but I think it was a great gig from someone who finally seems to be getting the recognition that they deserve. Wilko was back on the Telecaster after using a Stratocaster for the last few gigs that I've seen him play (good!) and he sounded fabulous, assisted as always by the mighty Norman Watt-Roy on bass and an unnamed drummer (I wonder where Dylan Howe has gone?) as he powered through 30-something minutes of rocket fuelled rhythm and blues. And he looked great too, as these photos show... The Stranglers looked pretty good too, and they certainly sounded good, with the expected classics sitting alongside some of the more obscure tracks from their dim and distant past that even had some of the diehard fans scratching their heads in half-recognition. I first saw them over 30 years ago, and when I see them these days I always think 'I really must get myself one of their compilation albums one day' - and I'm right, I must. A great show.

Right - back to Utter Madness keyboard player Richard, who among his many attributes is involved with Glee Club UK. Now I must admit to not knowing very much about all things Glee-related, but somewhere during the course of Saturday evening I somehow agreed to record the guitar parts on his / the club's version of Bon Jovi's 'Livin' On A Prayer', despite being possibly the least qualified guitarist ever to attempt the style of playing required by the song. To this end I've been attempting to decipher the playing on the track (having heard it what feels like a million times today I'm almost starting to like it, although am I the only person who thinks it was lifted from this?) and leaving aside the fact that I don't have a talkbox handy I haven't done too badly. At least I don't think that I have - we'll all know soon enough...