Carry that weight

When I was a lad - and believe it or not, I was once a lad - pop music was a lot more exciting than it is now. I sound really old don't I? Well - I am! But I genuinely think that it was - in my early teens the likes of T.Rex, Slade and The Sweet were topping the charts on a regular basis, and leaving aside the fact that I have absolutely no idea who is at number one as I type this (there's nothing like shouting your mouth off without knowing the facts now is there?) I very much doubt that it would sound anywhere near as exciting as any of these three tracks, all of which made it to the top of the pile. But here's a record (I still call them records, don't you?) that definitely deserves to be this year's Christmas number one - released this coming Monday 17th December 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' by The Justice Collective aims to raise money for The Hillsborough Justice Campaign which does stirling work for the victims of The Hillsborough Disaster. I'll spare you my usual ranting on the subject and just say that if that isn't a worthwhile cause then I for one don't know what is. Here's the story courtesy of The Liverpool Echo (which my Dad used to deliver when he was a lad, as he never tires of reminding me!) where you'll also find the promo video and links for downloading the single from iTunes and Amazon. The recording features the likes of Mick Jones and Shane MacGowan alongside Liverpool artists like Paul McCartney, Gerry Marsden and Melanie C.; at the very least it's a great song (here is the classic version by The Hollies just in case you've forgotten it) and let's face it, it's got to be better than the X Factor winner getting the Christmas number one spot hasn't it?

Island life

First things first, and after much deliberation (certainly on my part) those loveable funsters The Price are reforming for a show at The Crown And Treaty in Uxbridge this coming Saturday 22nd September. Support comes from The Chilterns, D.J. Chris is spinning some discs (all of these people can be found in Balcony Shirts on a regular basis) and the whole thing starts at around 8.30pm with our group due on at quarter to ten for an hour-and-a-bit; the pub is open until 4am so you can always have too much to drink after we've been and gone. As always with The Price this could turn out to be our last ever show (!) so if you can make it along it'll be good to see you.

And talking of things that may well prove to be a mistake I have done the thing that no right-minded person should ever do - yes, that's right, like an idiot I've started a Facebook page. I've resisted this up until this point, not least because from what I've seen of it in the past I'll need to have at least half of my brain removed to fit in with the general level of intelligence that people seem to exhibit when leaving messages on it, but I guess we'll see how it goes. You can find me by clicking here - I don't know how long it'll be there for, but it's there as I type this...

Marc Bolan died 35 years ago last Sunday. I've been playing some T.Rex albums in the last few days, and they still sound like no other band - some of it is inevitably dated, but the best tracks are timeless examples of just how good pop music can be. 'Metal Guru' was the first record that I ever bought (as opposed to received as a present) and it still sounds fantastic - literally 'the stuff of fantasy' - to me. I remember that as a would-be punk rocker the news of his death hit me surprisingly hard; the scorched-earth policy that 'everything before Johnny and Joe didn't matter' was clearly a generalisation, and Bolan remains one of my favourite artists of all time.

After over 23 years there has finally been an independent enquiry into the Hillsborough disaster, and the findings have revealed what many suspected all along - lies, deception, tampering with evidence, more lies, more deception and even more lies by officials, police officers, the ambulance service and maybe (maybe!) even the government of the time. It's emerged that 164 witness statements were altered and up to 41 fans could have lived if help had been given - let's hope that this is only the end of the beginning, and now those responsible for covering up the truth will finally be bought to justice at last. 

In the meantime the latest Ruts D.C. show saw the band play at The Fermain Tavern on Guernsey on Saturday as part of The Guernsey Literary Festival with Linton Kwesi Johnson and Attila The Stockbroker.
After my antics on the way to our show in Croatia back in July I decided to leave myself plenty of time to get to Gatwick Airport for our flight to the island. With this in mind the long-suffering Shirley dropped me at Hillingdon tube station just after 7.40am. By 7.45am I was walking up to strangers and asking if I could borrow their mobile phone - yes, you've guessed it, I'd left mine behind... given this inauspicious start the rest of my journey went without too much incident, although finding the Gatwick train at St Pancras International wasn't as easy as it might have been - if there were any signs I couldn't see them, and doesn't anyone work at train stations anymore?
I arrived at the Aurigny Airways check in just as Dave and Molara were reaching the front of the queue - at which point I realised that I'd forgotten to print off my boarding passes for the flights. Bugger! 'Don't worry, they'll print one for you' said Dave cheerily - fortunately they weren't one of the airlines that charges you for this sort of things these days!
We went through security before deciding on breakfast at Cafe Rouge where Seamus soon joined us; the rest of our party (Segs, Pablo and Rob) were in The Flying Horse enjoying a different type of breakfast... initial 'oh my gawd the plane's got propellers' worries turned out to thankfully unfounded, and the short flight passed without incident. At Guernsey Airport we were met by Rob and Hayley who took us to The Les Douvres Hotel - whereupon checking through my gear I discovered that I'd forgotten my slide. This was getting silly! I try to leave a slide with each guitar, but had only decided to use to my Lemon Drop the night before and for some reason the case was slide-less. Bah! 
The rest of the band and crew went off for food but I was still full from breakfast (and still feeling the effects of an upset stomach a day or so before) and so stayed at the hotel to catch up on a bit of sleep, play some guitar and get a bit of fresh air. Rock 'n' roll eh?
Half past four and it's off to the venue (via Kendall Guitars to buy a slide - at least I can leave it in the Lemon Drop's case! Incidentally this is an excellent shop, and there was a poster in the window advertising a gig by a G'n'R tribute band called Guerns 'n' Roses...) for soundcheck. The Fermain Tavern certainly seems to be a popular venue, with pictures of Wilko Johnson and Nine Below Zero on the walls (excellent!) and a good stage and P.A. system. We've bought Rob with us to do our sound, he's bought a Roland Space Echo with him for the dubbier parts of our set which takes a while to get working to his satisfaction. I've got a Fender Twin Reverb which would normally have me rejoicing but n this case took a bit of getting used to - a bit trebley compared to some that I've used, or maybe I haven't used The Lemon Drop much lately? Dave was perturbed to find mould on the cymbals provided for him to use - apparently they came from a rehearsal studio situated in an old German bunker and 'it can get a bit damp in there'...
I'd not met Linton Kwesi Johnson before - I think I last saw him back in the 1980s, and he seemed to be a very nice if rather quiet chap; Attila was of course as irrepressible as ever, a very nice if not-at-all quiet chap!
With everything sounding good it's back to the hotel for some food and to get changed before returning to the venue to catch most of Attila's and all of Linton's performances, both of which were excellent but both of which highlighted an interesting audience dynamic - what you might call the 'bookish' part of the crowd consistently appealed for quiet from the 'rock' element who were warming up with beer and often rather loud conversation. Things got a bit heated on more than one occasion - eventually an uneasy calm was reached when the rockers moved towards the back of the room.
10.45 and Attila introduces us as a band that he first saw on the back of a flat bed truck at a Rock Against Racism rally, going on to say that things have changed a lot for the band since then. They have indeed... the show proved to be interesting for a number of reasons. The reggae-based material saw a full dancefloor and went down very well, whereas the punkier songs (like 'Back Biter') saw a more raucous response, mostly from the people who had moved to the back of the venue earlier in the evening. There was a bit of heckling here and there (Segs saw them off with ease!) and the show went well enough for us to play an encore ('H-Eyes' in case you were wondering) and to receive many compliments after the gig.
Sunday started earlier than I for one would have liked, as breakfast ended at half past nine and checkout was at 11 o'clock. At least that's when I thought that it was - the phone went in my room at 10.50 to remind me that checkout was at 10.30. I'd more-or-less got all my stuff together, but since we weren't due to leave for the airport until one o'clock that left quite a while to fill. I decided to have a walk around the area, which turned out to be interesting if a little perilous at times - the roads were often only just wide enough for two cars which meant some very careful manoeuvring by drivers (and often some very careful reversing if the road wasn't wide enough for both cars) and the occasional jumping out of the way by pedestrians (i.e.me!)
At the airport we meet LKJ in the queue, who tells us we 'mashed them last night'. This pleases us greatly! The man behind the counter tells me that I can walk my guitar on to the plane, but when I take my pedalboard to outsize baggage I'm told the guitar has to go too. Oh well. At security Molara gets stopped and has to empty all her bag out, which as you can imagine she's not too pleased about. I'm wandering about in the duty free shop looking at nothing in particular when I hear my name read out over the tannoy. This has never happened to me before but as I heard it I felt my nerves jangle - why do they want me to 'report to gate 4 immediately'? When I get there I'm asked if I'm carrying an outsized item onto the plane - as I was about to answer I looked out of the window to see my guitar being loaded onto the aircraft. Confusion reigns for a few seconds but everything seems to be ok in the end.
On the plane LKJ asks Segs where he buys his hats as the girl across the aisle from them comments on how cool they both look and a couple of seats from me a nun looks on quizzically. A good moment - or maybe that should be a God moment?  
As we wait at Gatwick Segs and myself wonder whether our instruments will be in the outsize section or will just appear on baggage carousel number 1 with everything else. As we debate their fate my pedalboard is one of the first things to emerge on the belt, followed by Segs's bass guitar. What feels like hours later the belt is empty and all our fellow passengers have gone on to bigger and better things but there's still no sign of my instrument - after a bit of deliberation I go to baggage enquiries with Pablo while Segs and Rob stay by the carousel in case it appears. The men behind the glass are helpful but resigned to filling in the large number of forms that are being liberated from a filing cabinet as they tell me that it's 'very unusual for anything to go missing from The Channel Islands'. This information is clearly intended to be reassuring but doesn't really make me feel any better. Suddenly Pablo's phone rings - Segs has got my guitar. It appeared on the belt just before the next aircraft's baggage emerged.
As I opened the case to check that it was still all in one piece I thought about the nun on the plane - she'd bought an enormous bottle of gin when they bought the duty free around. At that moment I felt as though she'd got the right idea.

The moon's a balloon

Fantastic news - Keith Moon has been approached to make an appearance with The Who at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. At last it's the reunion that we fans have been waiting for! I can only hope that doesn't prove to be a rather late April Fool joke, as The Who's manager Bill Curbishley doesn't appear to be taking it very seriously - either that or as this story shows he's trying to ruin everything by suggesting that Moonie has been a little difficult to contact for the last 30-odd years. Surely the Olympics committee concerned wouldn't have made the laughable, tragic, pathetic error of inviting a dead person to participate in their ghastly charade would they? Of course there is always a chance that it's actually an indication of spectacular incompetence on the part of the organisers - after all, it's hard to think that with someone like Jeremy Hunt on the team they could be anything less than excellent isn't it?

Mention of the man they (allegedly) call 'Corrible' remind me that it seems customary for an ill-informed politician or celebrity to put one or more of their feet squarely in their mouth around the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, and this year it's the turn of 'comedian' Alan Davies who clearly used every last iota of his intellect and wit when he observed that it 'gets on his tits' that Liverpool F.C. choose not to play on April 15th as a mark of respect to the 96 fans who died on that ill-fated day. He then went on to make several other similarly well-argued observations (click here to find out what they were and some of the reactions to them) and was then amazed when some people found them offensive. I don't know very much about him as a person but pretty much every time I've seen him on shows like 'Q.I.' I've thought him to be smug, self-obsessed and above all unfunny (not exactly a career move for somebody who appears to consider themselves to be a comedian) although I suppose that somebody must like him; I also believe that he's something of a football fan which to me make his comments all the more unfathomable. Anyone with even the remotest interest in the game is aware of the ongoing sensitivity of anything to do with Hillsborough; also surely the point here is that Liverpool F.C. choose not to play on that day i.e. it's their way of honouring the people who died and the others who were effected by the tragedy, and as such that should be respected. Apparently Davies has a show booked at The Liverpool Empire in September - now that should be a very interesting evening, and probably quite an easy one to get a ticket for...

In the meantime much evidence of last weekend's Department S show has surfaced by the magic of the Internet - click here for a YouTube interview with guitarist Mike followed by 'My Coo Ca Choo' (the interview explains why that song is in the set!) as well as these four more clips, while the evocatively named 'Peek-A-Boo' magazine features these photos taken at the show. All good stuff, although I might wear a different hat next time!

Time for another F.B.I. Band gig on Saturday night, at Harry and Clemmie's wedding reception at Boodles Club in Central London. With a membership that has included people like The Duke Of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and David Niven this is another of those 'they-don't-normally-let-people-like-me-into-places-like-this' gigs that your humble narrator participates in from time to time; these generally end with me uttering oaths and curses in these hallowed pages followed by me suggesting insurrection and class war at the earliest possible opportunity. To be honest as an evening this one went along similar lines to all the other ones (i.e. a bunch of toffs take virtually no notice of us until some of the more drunken among them accidentally start dancing recklessly and a bit too close to the band for comfort; suddenly loads of them start doing the same in case they were missing out on something and the show ends with scenes of general mayhem and them barking their demands for more in the general direction of the band before lurching off in the general direction of the bar) so I don't feel as though there's too much to say that I haven't said on similar occasions. However the band (Tony on vocals, Richard on keyboards, Mark on drums and Jon on bass - more about the horn players in a minute) did manage a drink in the nearby Red Lion before the show which was most enjoyable; at the club I braved a look in the 'Members Requirements' book (essentially suggestions and / or complaints) which regularly featured Henry Blofeld musing on subjects as diverse as digestive biscuits (he wanted McVitie's rather than the non-descript brand that he'd been served) and who he sat next to at breakfast (he wasn't too happy about being seated next to a stranger) among other similarly life-threatening incidents. But probably the oddest incident occurred shortly before 9 pm, the allotted time for our first set - Jim the trumpet player arrived with minutes to spare (as usual! How does he do that?!?) and asked where Ian the Sax man was; when Tony said that he wasn't doing this show and he believed a dep had been arranged Jim sat down with the words 'oh, is this the one that he can't do?', pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and began dialling. Within a few minutes he said 'Howard will be here around 10.30' than asked if there was any food... with no sign of any guest or indeed the bride or groom we were led down to the staff canteen where food was indeed available, before going back upstairs just as a chap wearing a saxophone strolled in, introduced himself as Howard ('I've been doing ''Singin' In The Rain'' around the corner') before blowing a few notes to check if his microphone was working correctly. We began 'Soul Man' a few minutes later to an empty room; it took 4 or 5 songs before the dangerous dancing started - and you know the rest...

And yesterday saw an all-day Cool Britannia rehearsal at Ruff Rockers in Uxbridge. We'd all been a bit disappointed with last month's Southend session as we felt that we didn't sound as good as we might have, but fortunately it all went better this time with everyone playing well and pretty much all the songs sounding like they should. With not long to go before the opening night this can only be a good thing!

In the meantime I'm off to play 'Live At Leeds' (and indeed to watch the only footage of that incredible show) and to wish that I'd seen The Who with Keith Moon behind the kit. After all, that opening ceremony story surely must have been a not-particularly-good-taste joke - mustn't it?

96 Tears

In these days of evil presidente there isn't much good news to be had, so it's great to be able to report that the Hillsborough Online Petition has reached the required 100,000 signatures to call for the release of Government papers pertaining to the 1989 disaster. Let's hope this brings justice for the 96 a bit closer.

Two great songwriters have sadly left the building since the last posting - Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford both contributed immeasurably to popular music, Leiber with Mike Stoller (with whom he worked for the best part of 60 years) and Ashford with his wife Valerie Simpson. Leiber and Stoller wrote any number of classic songs for the likes of Elvis Presley and The Drifters in the '50s and 60s as well as 'Stuck In The Middle With You' (I didn't know they wrote that!) and 'Pearl's A Singer' (or that!) in the 70s. Ashford and Simpson wrote countless Motown hits for other artists as well as having several in their own name. If they'd only written 'Hound Dog' and 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' they'd be two of the best songwriting teams of all time. Two very sad losses to the music world.

The Chicago Blues Brothers journeyed to Maidstone on Saturday evening for our first show at The Pizza Express since last New Year's Eve. With Squirrel away Pete made a rare appearance on bass, Martin makes his debut with us on sax and returning for the first time in ages it's T. Rextasy drummer John Skelton, who was the drummer in the CBB's when I first started playing with them all those years ago. Chris is on keyboards, Dave on trumpet and Matt and Mike are Jake and Elwood for a show that featured '634-5789' for the first time in a very long while. It also saw Dave play the trumpet solo in 'Minnie The Moocher' from up on the balcony, and your humble narrator cutting his hand on his guitar at the end of the solo in 'Sweet Home Chicago'. Well. Matt was egging me on, and I thought I'd be fun to try a bit of a windmill... I never learn do I? Nevertheless it was a good show overall, and it sounded like it was a good show next door at Earls judging by the songs I heard Vince Vortex play - 'Seventeen', 'I Fought The Law', 'New Rose', '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais'... time I formed a punk covers band methinks!

In the meantime there are two potentially excellent shows on the horizon this weekend - The Uppercut return to The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Friday, and I'm depping in The Duplicates at The Pelton Arms in Greenwich on Monday. I started this blog on August Bank Holiday Weekend 2006 - hopefully these shows should be two very good ways to celebrate...

Communication breakdown

So - what have I done with myself since the last gigs?

Well one if the things I managed to do was to lose my mobile phone. I definitely had it first thing on Saturday morning as I used it as an alarm clock (a very expensive alarm clock as we shall see) but somewhere between waking up and arriving at the shop I managed to misplace it. Or it was stolen. Or something. Bugger! I assumed that I'd left it at home and spent the day alternating between thinking things like 'oh this is nice, no one can bother me, it's actually quite liberating' and 'oh no - Paul McCartney's probably calling me at this very moment to ask if I'd like to be his rhythm guitarist at his Hyde Park gig and leaving messages like ''can you let me know in the next half-an-hour or I'll have to give it to someone else'' and I can't even get the message let alone call him back'. Anyway I got home to discover that it was nowhere to be seen - after the obligatory 'I'll re-trace my steps' scenario that we all try when we've lost something (well, we do don't we? And it never works does it?) I went back into Uxbridge to tell my tale of woe to the young chap at the O2 shop. He was very helpful, gave me a new SIM card then called customer services for me who blocked my old SIM and activated the new one for me. All was going well until I asked what I should do next. 'Is the phone insured?' the young chap asked me cheerily. 'Yes, I pay it on direct debit' I answered with all the misplaced confidence that someone who's about to be proved wrong always seems to have. 'Well there's nothing on our system' said the young chap, slightly less cheerily. 'Oh - well who am I paying that money to every month then?' 'I don't know sir but it's not us!' he replied, looking as though he wanted to change the subject. Time for a visit to the bank then... it then transpired that I'm not due for an upgrade until next July and so now have two choices :- use an old handset, or buy (buy! Shouldn't they give me one, the amount that bloody iPhone costs me? Bah!) a new one to use as a pay-as-you-go phone until then. Or of course I could buy a new iPhone for (gulp!) £449. Hmm... I'm sure I've got an old handset somewhere... it's annoying but, let's face it, I've only lost a phone, not an arm.

And, as it turned out, I hadn't lost a phone either. When I got to the shop on Monday morning I found it under the counter where I usually leave it. But I'm sure I didn't take it in with me, and it definitely wasn't there at closing time on Saturday. No, it definitely wasn't. Honest. Of course when I saw it I became even more convinced that Macca had been calling all weekend, and if that wasn't bad enough the new SIM card wasn't working yet and Eric Clapton's probably been trying to get through as well... it's still not back on as I type this, and I've now spent a fortune calling customer services on our landline, as well as no doubt missing out on every decent guitar-playing job in the known Western World. Argh!

What else? Oh yes, I've developed hay fever. Well, no massive shock there as I get it every summer but it had held off this year not least because the weather's been so lousy, and I think I'd got all optimistic in a 'perhaps-I'm-not-going-to-get-it-or-if-I-do-it-won't-be-too-bad' sort of way. No such luck - I'm sneezing, spluttering and coughing as well as having itchy eyes along with blocked sinuses which as well as giving me a headache have resulted in me not being able to hear out of my right ear due to wax build-up. That's what I get for that jibe about global warming at the last CBB gig then. Still at least the weather's better.

Oh and before I forget to mention it, England got knocked out of The World Cup by Germany. But you knew that already didn't you? I watched the game with my Dad, who's analysis of England's attempts at professional football wasn't quite as funny as this one, but was just as accurate. Will people PLEASE stop thinking that the English football team are to be taken seriously as anything other than Keystone Kops impersonators and let them get on with their cossetted little lives as celebrity time wasters. They'll thank you for it (or at least their spokesperson will) and you won't have to go through what you went through on Sunday afternoon again. Simple eh?

Except of course it isn't that simple is it? I'm not in the least bit patriotic but it's still good to see our national sports teams doing well, and therefore it's hard not to feel let down by the appalling performances of the last couple of weeks. Oh well, there's always Wimbledon... actually forget I said that because we've got no chance there either, although if by some miracle Andy Murray does do well in the tournament it'll be interesting to see if the media hail him as a 'British champion' rather than a 'Scottish failure', as well as saying that he's actually a paragon of jollity rather than the miserable sour-faced git that they've led us to believe him to be. And anyway I bet I'm not the only person that thinks that it's just a load of Top Gear-loving Tories getting sunstroke whilst watching a couple of characterless nonentities attempting to return each other's rocket-powered serves - in other words it's about as uninteresting as an uninteresting thing being uninteresting, which I think you'll agree is very uninteresting indeed. Still at least the audience could be World champions at this... and talking of Tories and football Jeremy Hunt is the latest intellectual dwarf to make some ill-advised comments regarding the Hillsborough disaster by linking it to hooliganism. Quite how someone who many people (not me of course, libel fans) might now see as an arrogant, blinkered, pig ignorant little shithead ended up with the job of (wait for it!) Secretary Of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (really!) is a subject that's perhaps is best not debated here - that said Iain Duncan Smith could perhaps suggest somewhere that he could move to in the pursuit of a more appropriate job - but the incident bought to my mind Jeffery Archer, a man who has the rare distinction of having had his name adopted by the criminal fraternity as slang for a sum of money, an Archer being £2,000. Perhaps it's time to start a campaign to have 'Jeremy Hunt' replace 'Berkeley Hunt' in rhyming slang? Well, it's a thought. And not a bad one at that.

I've got some gigs this weekend. I'll try to cheer up a bit then.