Roots, Radicals, Rockers and Reggae

So. 2018 then. Not a bad year?

No, not a bad year. Well, I didn't think that it was.

Then again considering that it began for me with my Dad catching The Flu then developing pneumonia I suppose I was rather hoping for it to improve... within a couple of weeks of that (and with him thankfully at home recovering) Ruts D.C. were gigging in Japan and Hong Kong then touring Australia and New Zealand before embarking on a British tour supporting Stiff Little Fingers. If that was all we'd done I'd be saying that it had been a good year, but we went on to play many more memorable shows - The Rebellion Festival in Blackpool is always a highlight, but the Rebellion Amsterdam weekend was wonderful; we also made our first visit to Denmark, played a tattoo festival in France, gigged on a boat up and down the River Spree in Berlin and more including a visit to Abbey Road Studios - little if any of which got reported here. It's all been on my Facebook page - which is a somewhat woolly excuse for this being only the twelfth blog posting of the year. There was a time when used to do that in a month. But I guess times change... maybe there'll be more here next year?    

Talking of 2019, I'm hoping to play some more shows with Punky Reggae Party. Having first gigged with them back in the summer (an incident that incredibly is reported somewhere in these hallowed pages!) I've since played a couple more gigs with them including a fine show at The Cavern in Raynes Park just before Christmas - hopefully they will be many more to come, the first of which is at The Bread And Roses in Clapham on Saturday 19th January. I'm also putting another band together with some old friends, but more news on that as and when I have it. And Ruts D.C. are heading out on the '40 Years Of The Crack' tour in February, with (hopefully) more to come after that.

So hopefully 2019 will be a good year for me and my guitar - and I hope it is for you too. 

Forwards!

'Fly into the rising sun...'

So there you have it - around 30,000 miles (and what feels like around 30 hours sleep) later and we're back in Blighty. And it's cold. Bloomin' cold. I don't usually mind winter weather - in fact if I'm honest I often think that I prefer it to the summer in a way - but having recently spent the best part of two weeks in temperatures approaching and in some cases exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit I don't mind admitting that I'm considering reconsidering my stance on such things. But what a time we've had - the first ever Ruts D.C. shows in Japan and Hong Kong followed by two shows in New Zealand and five shows in Australia supporting The Stranglers - well it's hardly the worst start to the year ever isn't it? 

Incidentally I spent the two weeks before we left to go on tour looking after my Dad who caught 'flu which turned to pneumonia - hopefully he's on the mend now but there were more than a few harrowing moments. Get yourselves a 'flu jab kids! 

I managed to update my Facebook page at regular intervals throughout our jaunt, and the Ruts D.C. page includes a few live streams (I haven't worked out how to do that yet!) alongside Segs and Dave's observations on proceedings - if you'd like to see footage of me in an English pub in the middle of Tokyo eating chips with chopsticks there here's your chance... somewhat inevitably I've got the usual interminable pages of scribbly notes (Godzilla, lost passports and more) along with any number of photographs, some or all of which may one day find their way into these hallowed pages - but suffice to say that the whole experience really was unforgettable, and I for one hope that we return to all four locations before too long.

In the meantime since returning home I've seen The Damned at Koko (great stuff as usual) The Urban Voodoo Machine in Southampton (where I joined them for their encore - video evidence here, I'll learn the song better next time... if they let me have a next time!) and witnessed Terry from The Upper Cut playing bass with Zoot Money in Barnes (first set good, second set marred by not-at-all special 'special guests' and amateurish directionless hippie jamming - absolutely appalling and an insult to people who had paid to see it) as well as playing with Big Al and the boys and working in Balcony Shirts - business as usual, as usual... until next time...

To The Southern Hemisphere and beyond!

A young man offered me his seat on a bus the other day. I guess this means that I'm now officially old? 

Normally this kind of occurrence would be the signal for me to drift off into the usual whining, self-pitying 'what have I done with my Godforsaken life?' nonsense that I tend to get lost in whilst writing these hallowed pages - but not this time my friends, as it's time for your humble narrator to go on tour! And what a tour - we start in Japan; from there we travel to Hong Kong before meeting up with The Stranglers (did I really just type that?!?) for shows supporting them in New Zealand and Australia. As always I will be attempting to update my Facebook page as we go along, and the Ruts D.C. page will also carry details of our adventures as we wend our way around The World. Time to check if I've packed enough pants and socks... again... if you're coming to a show then please say hello - I'll be the old guy with the guitar...

Turning Japanese / Hong Kong Garden

Well let's start 2018 as we mean to go on - with some ridiculously good news! Well it's certainly ridiculously good news from my point of view - the first three Ruts D.C. gigs of the year have been announced, and they're all in previously uncharted territory for your humble narrator. We're playing two shows in Tokyo - yes, that's right, Tokyo - on the 27th and 28th of January followed by a show in Hong Kong on the last day of the month. 

You know that bit in these postings where I put something like 'I can hardly believe what I type here sometimes'? Well here it is again - I can hardly believe what I type here sometimes. Seriously though, one of the first live albums I remember hearing was 'Made In Japan' by Deep Purple - it would have been a couple of years after it was originally released, and for whatever reason it made a big impression on me. I think that it was due to a number of factors - Ritchie Blackmore's still-incredible guitar playing, the power that the band played with, the songs, the sound... strange, because I didn't really like very much music like that at the time. Come to think of it, I still don't... anyway it loomed large in my mid-1970s listening, and as a result Japan attained a somewhat mythical status in my teenage mind. I've not been there or to Hong Kong before, and I genuinely cannot wait to do these shows. I'm very lucky to do what I do. I say that a fair bit too don't I? 

We then travel to New Zealand and Australia for the previously - mentioned shows with The Stranglers. I can hardly believe what I type here sometimes. But you know that already.