The shapes of things to come?

I was saddened to hear of the death of Clive Dunn this week - if you're my age you remember 'Dad's Army' very well, with catchphrases like 'don't panic!' and 'you stupid boy!' being part of your growing up. Well, they were in our house!

The light pours out of me

Although I didn't have any gigs last weekend I did attend the open mic night at The Swan in Iver on Sunday evening, and very enjoyable it was too. I ended up playing in the house band (John the organiser asked me if I'd do it, and I'm just a boy who can't say no...) where I found myself joining Tony on bass and Bob on drums to accompany, well, anyone who wanted a backing band. A chap asked if he could sing 'Feelings' by Morris Albert - not an easy song as it's got more than a few tricky chords (which I looked up on the Internet with my phone - what did we used to do in the old days eh?) but we managed to stumble through it. Big Al Reed was as excellent as ever (I'm not just saying that because he gives me gigs, he really was good) as was Les Payne, and after years of not going to jam nights I now seem to have found myself to be a regular at this one. Mind you, I did have another reason for going along this time...
For a while now we've been stocking some musical instruments and accessories at Balcony Shirts; these days we've not got many guitars (as they weren't really selling - sad but true)  but the accessories side of things is doing well. We get them from the John Hornby Skewes (JHS) distribution company - to this end Dave the rep visits us regularly, and on his last visit we got talking about my then-upcoming gigs with Ruts DC in Birmingham and York. By then end of our conversation the subject had come around to the possibility of an endorsement deal for me with Vintage and Fret King Guitars. I've been using a Vintage Lemon Drop for some time (that's what got us onto the subject) and have tried and liked some Fret King instruments, so it all got quite interesting quite quickly... to cut a long story short (for once!) Sunday was an opportunity for me to play a Fret King Yardbird on Sunday evening which Dave had provided for me to try; it's based on the guitar that Jeff Beck used when he was playing in The Yardbirds and while I don't own it (yet!) it's certainly a very impressive instrument. I've always had a bit of an aversion to maple necks (I generally prefer rosewood fingerboards, but it's a subject that doesn't have an simple answer as this clip shows...) but this felt and sounded great - we'll see what happens next but you just might see me looking out from an advert in the pages of the guitar magazines sometime in the not-too-distant future!

In the meantime The Rikardo Brothers played at The Bedford Arms in Chenies last night, at Paul and Cathy's wedding reception. We'd not played since way back in February (they - Alan on vocals and Pete on guitar - have played without me when I've been gigging elsewhere) when it was the day after a night that saw me indulge in what could politely be described as projectile vomiting (urgh!) and although I'll be honest and say that my fragile condition that day means that I hardly remember playing we must have done something right as we were booked to play this show as a result of our performance that afternoon. Judging by the condition of some of the guests by the time we arrived at 7 o'clock festivities had clearly been in full swing for a number of hours (I'll leave you to think about that for a moment..!) and by the time our first set started there were more than a few people who looked unlikely to last the rest of the evening. We'd had a rehearsal on Wednesday evening and I for one was glad that we did as I'd all but forgotten some of the material, but despite the old dubious moment the show went well and was rapturously received by all concerned. Cathy started our second set by singing 'Little White Bull' accompanied by Pete (I hadn't got a clue how it goes, but the fact that Pete managed to busk along is a measure of just how good a player he is...) while Alan completely forgot the words to 'Mustang Sally' and ended up singing 'In The Midnight Hour' instead! Overall however we enjoyed ourselves to such an extent that we've all resolved to make an effort to get more gigs for the group and even are looking to do some recording. Excellent! 

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Yardbird guitar to play - that sound must be on there somewhere...

Vintage and rare guitars

And it was indeed a very long day. By lunchtime it was becoming all too apparent that I was developing the hangover that I'd up until that point managed to keep at bay with toast and coffee (either that or I was sobering up!) and by talking total gibberish to customers. Somehow I got through the afternoon - just! - and then went home and fell asleep. You knew I'd say that didn't you? But it really was a great night, with The Upper Cut giving a fine show which ended with a worrying amount of young people dancing wildly and quite a few drinks being drunk. Several kind souls bought me cards and presents, Mad Jock and his mates Brian and George came down all the way from Glasgow for the occasion (really!) and, well, quite a few drinks were drunk. The long-suffering Shirley eventually got East and myself out of the building sometime before 2 a.m. (oh yes!) by which time quite a few more drinks had been drunk. And why not?

The day itself had been relatively quiet (although you may argue that pretty much anything was 'relatively quiet' compared to the evening) with my Dad and brother coming round for the afternoon and your humble narrator showing heroic restraint when it came to alcohol. Given the mayhem that followed this was definitely a good move - I didn't have anything alcoholic to drink before 8.30 in the evening which might seem a bit serious, even (gulp!) sensible but I wanted to be able to play a decent show. Ooh, I am getting old... in the meantime Shirley and her family managed to surprise me - and I mean surprise me! - by getting me a Vintage Lemon Drop electric guitar, which was sitting on the front room table when I stumbled downstairs in the morning. Hmm... that'll be the same guitar that was in the shop a few weeks ago; given the amount of subterfuge that has clearly gone on over the last few weeks I may never believe anything that anybody anywhere ever says to me ever again!

The last gig of my 40s (sounds dramatic doesn't it?!?) was with The Chicago Blues Brothers in Sutton Courtenay near Abingdon, at the same venue / enormous house that we played at last August. As Richard arrived to pick me up around 6 o'clock the news of the death of Amy Winehouse came on the car radio - another casualty, another member of the dreaded 27 Club. Sad. I saw her at 'The Strat Pack' concert where I heard that voice for the first time - the guitar obsessives around me complained that she shouldn't have been there as she wasn't a guitar hero or something, I thought she sounded extraordinary. I wasn't sure if I liked her or not, but she certainly sounded extraordinary. There seems to have been a grim inevitability about her death, which it seems no one around her could do anything to prevent. A great shame.

It was the first CBB show for ages to feature a 3 man horn section - joining Richard on sax is John on trumpet who's not played with us before, and Andy on trombone who last played with us at Leeds Castle back in July 2007 when he distinguished himself by falling over on stage whilst pretending to be galloping around on horseback. Strange but true. Roger returns on keyboards, Tracy's on vocals, Marc and Squirrel are on drums and bass, Pete and Mike are in the hats 'n' glasses and our 90 minute set goes down well with the assembled multitude, quite a few of whom had clearly been enjoying the hospitality of the host to the full. Well the ones dancing in front of and indeed on the stage certainly had been. I seem to remember this happened last time too. Excellent!

Yesterday I had a rehearsal with T.V. Smith for our gig at the Rebellion Festival next weekend, today I'm playing a Blues Brothers show in an Italian Restaurant in Leeds. No, really, I am. This 'being 50' lark is off to a good start...

'Come on up for the rising...'

It's a funny old life sometimes isn't it? One minute you're on stage with a songwriting genius, the next you're selling flip flops emblazoned with the image of a snooker legend. Or maybe that should be snooker giant? - after all Bill Werbeniuk was a big lad... that's Scott taking the photograph with Dave just visible behind the 'portable white background' that is actually the back of a sign that needs to go up on the front of the shop one day. And it will go up on the front of the shop, just as soon as one of us works out the best way to hang it. It's advertising the fact that we're now stocking more and more musical instruments and accessories, and to this end Chris and myself travelled up to Yorkshire last week to attend the John Hornby Skewes trade show - we met Mr. Skewes (it seems that's what everyone calls him!) and managing director Dennis Drumm, and I briefly met acoustic guitar maestro Gordon Giltrap as well as spending 20 minutes or so talking to Trevor Wilkinson, designer of Vintage and Fret King Guitars as well as various pieces of guitar hardware. We also ordered a fair amount of stuff from Dave the rep - it'll be very interesting to see how the next few months at the shop goes.

In the meantime there's more sad news with the death of Clarence Clemons. I saw him play with Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band on several occasions - the first time was in 1981 at The Wembley Arena on their tour to promote 'The River' album which remains probably the greatest rock performance I've ever seen and indeed am ever likely to see. (I've considered writing a piece on it here several times but never feel as though I can put into words what the evening did for for me. Maybe it's time I got on with it!) As well as being a fine musician he always seemed to be a great character - the sight of him and Springsteen together on stage is one of the iconic images of rock music don't you think? - and it's sad to see him go. First Danny Federici, now The Big Man - these are bad times for The Boss and his band.

Last Friday Awaken played at The Dolphin. I arrived just as their first set was ending to find the place full of people - normally a good sign from a band point of view, but since most of those present had spent the day at Royal Ascot and were therefore both over-dressed and overflowing with alcohol it made for a rather strange evening. There was much dancing and general merriment although it all reminded me of those corporate events that I sometimes find myself playing at - you just know that they're not actually taking very much notice of the music and will forget that you even played virtually as soon as the show finishes, the lads being more concerned with looking down the front of the ladies' dresses and the ladies being more concerned with whether or not they liked the lad that was doing the looking. The band played well but nowhere near as good as they can - it all looked a bit too much like hard work. Maybe it was?

Sunday evening it was time for Pimp My Jazz at The Load of Hay. Now I must admit that since seeing 'Jazz Club' on 'The Fast Show' I often find it hard to keep a straight face when I hear jazz musicians (and indeed fans) talking - it all gets far too serious (not to mention pretentious) for me. Then again most of the musicians involved are much better players and a great deal more successful than I am so what do I know? Anyway Pimp My Jazz are based around the songwriting talents of Gavin Sparkes and Kay Shelly, both of whom I first met when I was working in The Music Shack in Uxbridge back in the late 1990s; the shop was run by Terry Peaker who in addition to playing fretless bass in Pimp My Jazz is also in The Uppercut with your humble narrator. Small World eh? Their two set show included most of the songs from their self-titled debut album alongside a few standards ('Fly Me To The Moon', 'Autumn Leaves' etc) and if nothing else they made me realise that no, I don't know enough about the style of music involved and no, I probably never will. Still they went down well with the jazz fans and that's what matters. Nice!

Incidentally Sunday 10th July sees Blyth Power main man Joseph Porter and acoustic troubadour Wob visit the Load of Hay - it should be an amazing evening!

And the last few days in Balcony Shirts have mostly been spent unpacking and displaying (and indeed selling) the musical merchandise that we bought last week - as I say, it'll be interesting to see how the next few months go...

Band of brothers

And the madness continues - we've now had over 15 thousand YouTube hits, and have peaked (so far!) at number 20 in the iTunes country music charts. Amazing, not least because it means that your humble narrator can say that he's played on a top 20 single. Look, there we are above Shania Twain and Taylor Swift; in fact we're the filling in a Taylor Swift sandwich. Now there's a thought... there's going to be a piece about us in the local paper this week, and Thursday morning saw unashamed posing from the entire Balcony Shirts crew when a photographer from said journal came to the shop. His appearance coincided with a visit from Dave the John Hornby Skewes rep who found the whole thing highly amusing - maybe he doesn't visit too many shops who design custom clothing whilst participating in a photo session?

It was a splendid evening on Friday when Tropic At Ruislip hosted a double bill of The Pistols and The Clashed. It was a much punkier bill than the usual Tropic fare, and a successful one with the best part of 200 people attending. Although I've depped in The Pistols I'd never actually seen them play, and they do a fine job in recreating the filth and the fury of Johnny and the boys. Singer Paul distinguished himself by wearing a tweed suit (cue butter gags!) and Colin the guitarist wielded a Steve Jones signature model Les Paul to great effect. Tim and Toby gave the bass and drums their all and although I could personally have done without the 'Great Rock 'n' Swindle' material (they missed out 'Did You No Wrong' but they played 'No One Is Innocent' - bah!) the 'NMTB' material sounded as mighty as ever. The Clashed were enjoyable enough although they were somewhat hampered (visually at least) by having a Mick and Joe mix up i.e. the rhythm guitarist sang like Jones and the lead guitarist sang like Strummer. They also had a bass player who looked about 12 although I think he was a stand-in. Sound wise they were authentic enough to get more than a few audience members bellowing along, and I'm sure I wasn't the only person there who felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand up as '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' began. And let's face it, any band who does 'Straight To Hell' as an encore can't be all bad can they? I'd probably have enjoyed them more if I hadn't developed hiccups a few songs into their set, a situation which sadly continued for much of the evening and gave me spurious justification for drinking far too much lager; it didn't stop the hiccups and it cost me a fortune!

And it was a good gig last night too - the (ahem) debut 'proper' (as opposed to 'impromptu-get-together-at-a-charity-night') performance of The Rikardo Brothers at The Load of Hay. Following on from our rehearsal on Tuesday Alan (vocals) had put together 2 sets, both of which he largely ignored all evening putting myself and Pete (guitar) on the spot with a few 'do you fancy a go at this one?' moments. Then again nobody in the audience seemed too concerned and overall it was a good first show although we all agreed that in a weird sort of way it's easier to play a unrehearsed gig like we did last time than it is to present a 'serious' show. Maybe there's less pressure if it's all spontaneous? Well, there's a question that could be profitably pondered... maybe I'll ponder it further one day...

The song remains the same

I don't know about you but I don't know much about Twitter; I believe young people and / or itinerant celebrities use it all the time to tell each other (and indeed the rest of the World's, er, 'tweeters') what they're doing at that precise moment in time. We have what I believe is called a 'feed' at Balcony Shirts, and last week Scott 'tweeted' (I'm getting good at the terminology if nothing else!) the following message:-

Is selling ukulele's in a t-shirt shop (a) weird? (b) good? (c) stupid?

Well I guess time will tell as to which answer is correct but, strange as it may seem, we are now selling ukuleles and other assorted musical instrument accessories in our Uxbridge shop. We're hoping to have some guitars in before long, and who knows where it will lead from there?
I must admit that, almost exactly a year to the day after my departure from Pro Music (I really must tell you what happened there mustn't I? Actually that reminds me, I spoke to someone the other day who said that they'd stopped going in there since the staff 'talk so much shit'. Hmm... perhaps we're starting this up at just the right time!) it was a strange feeling to be unpacking guitar leads and plectrums again - not a bad feeling, just strange. As I put together the counter display I couldn't help but smile. When we sold 4 (count them - four!) plectrums I couldn't help but smile some more. It's good to be back, if you know what I mean. Feel free to tweet that if you please; better still come in and see us - we'll do our best to talk sense.