'Second verse, same as the first...'

Well much of my time since we last spoke has been spent attempting to learn some songs. Neck songs. Clash songs. Price songs. Other songs. Lots of songs. I wonder if I can remember any of them?

There's a Neck rehearsal on Thursday night in anticipation of a St. Patrick's Day show at The 12 Bar Club ; rehearsals for the Joe Strummer film gig have been scheduled for the week after next so I've got a bit more time with them, although perhaps predictably the set list is changing a lot at the moment as guest singers confirm and cancel accordingly. I'm sure it'll all be ok in the end... and then there's the prospect of a Price gig almost exactly 30 years since our first one - more news as and when I have it, but if it doesn't happen then there's a good chance of us playing at some time in the next few months so I thought I'd better have a look at some of our songs too. And I'm playing at a wedding in 3 weeks time - I received the proposed song list earlier this week, which among quite a few numbers that I've played before also includes (gulp!) some songs from this century. Oo-er! Whatever next?!?

Anyway having had no gigs of my own this week (not necessarily a bad thing for once!) I made it along to The 100 Club two nights running to catch some more punk rock. The latest Human Punk club night saw a rare London appearance from the legends that are Sham 69 - I don't mind admitting that I was never their biggest fan but listened to 30-odd years on it must be said that their best material has weathered well. With original members Jimmy Pursey, Dave Parsons and Dave Tregguna all present and correct their set mostly consisted of early material and was lapped up by the sold out crowd. For me it was great to hear Dave Parsons sounding so good, although I felt that his partner-in-crime Mr. Pursey looked rather vulnerable at times. The next night The Sex Pistols Experience played a suitably barnstorming show, ably supported by Lizzie And The Banshees. Rather like Sham 69 my knowledge of the Siouxsie And the Banshees catalogue is more-or-less limited to their singles, but I thought they made a very good job of what is often some very difficult material. The SPE gave a raucous performance, with Nathan's uncanny portrayal of Uncle Johnny as impressive as ever and the rest of the band matching him blow for (biggest) blow. And once again the show was sold out, which is a good thing to see in these troubled times.

Music Scene Investigation on Sunday evening was good fun as always, although I did have more than a little trouble with song number 3 as you can see if you watch the show here. And I met up with Ian from MSI at The Angel in Hayes last night where he runs a first-Monday-of-the-month jam night - I hadn't intended to play but ended up on bass for a few songs. And why not?

Right - back to The Clash. I mean Neck. I mean The Price. Er... oh well, one of them anyway. Or all of them. Or something.

'Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself'

Well it seems as though television wasn't quite over after all, as John Lydon made an extraordinary appearance on BBC1's 'Question Time' on Thursday evening. Overall I thought he came over reasonably well, especially his rant against bankers which got probably the most enthusiastic applause of the evening. As I fan I wish he hadn't interrupted people quite as often as he did as I think it turned people who might otherwise have found his point of view interesting against him; I also wish he didn't play to the gallery quite as much (did he really shout 'UP THE PARATROOPERS!' at one point? Yes, amazingly, he did..) although whoever thought of sitting him next to Tory temptress (it says here) Louise Mensch clearly had a good sense of humour. I read somewhere that Morrissey has been approached to appear on the programme - could this be the start of some even less likely appearances in the not-too-distant future? 
And I remember seeing Eric Sykes on telly as a youngster, and indeed even recognised some of the clips shown in the wake of his death this week. As a kid I saw him as a man who could be funny without really doing very much if you know what I mean - and although I don't remember 'The Plank' from when it was first shown I remember my pre-teenage self laughing uncontrollably at it a few years later. Have a look here and see what you think - it might not look as funny as it did to me all those years ago, but I bet you still smile. I've just watched it, and although I'm not laughing uncontrollably, I'm definitely still smiling...


Time for a gig at last, with The F.B.I. Band in their guise as The Blues Brothers Experience at 'Groove At The Grove' in the grounds of The Hall Grove School in Bagshot. In previous postings I might well have ranted and raved about the British class system and all that sail in her, but as all the remaining Cool Britannia gigs have just been cancelled I'm so relieved to be actually playing a show that I can't really find it within myself at the moment. Maybe on another day... well let's face it, definitely on another day...
Given the extraordinary weather that we've been having over the last few weeks an open air event such as this could have gone either way - fortunately the rain held off for most of our set, and as a result we went down well with the assembled multitude of parents, teachers and pupils. Dep drummer Mark coped well with what I believe was his first gig with the band as did Blues Brother Austin (that's the same Austin that I used to work with...) while Chicago Blues Brothers stalwart Dave Land teamed up with F.B.I. regular Ian in the horn section alongside Jon on bass, Richard on keyboards and Tony as always on vocals. As I said above it was something of a relief to be playing a gig again - I've spent much of today putting my accounts in order and filling in my tax return, and have realised that my earnings in the last tax year are my lowest for a very long time. Oh well - it could be worse... just... still there's a rehearsal with The Flying Squad and a gig with Utter Madness this week, then next week Ruts D.C. play a festival in Croatia with The Upper Cut gigging perilously close to my birthday the week after that so hopefully things are about to improve. You have to stay optimistic haven't you? Well - haven't you?

That petrol emotion

You see some funny things when you work in a shop, especially an 'outside-of-the-mainstream' place like Balcony Shirts. Last week saw Iain Lee make a visit to do some filming - he's long been a Twitter acquaintance of the shop, and rather splendidly agreed to do some promotional work on our behalf. You can view that results on YouTube here - aren't Chris and Scott good actors?

Continuing the theme of strange things there's an upcoming election for the position of Mayor of London - on Thursday a large red bus with the words 'BETTER OFF WITH KEN' emblazoned along it's sides blocked traffic in Windsor Street and indeed blocked the daylight in the shop. Ken Livingstone was in town, accompanied by film crews, clip-board carrying young assistants and probably more besides. I always rather liked him, not least because I believe that he's something of an expert on newts; I also saw him respond to being asked how much alcohol he drinks with the answer 'I've no idea how much I drink, but I can assure you that it's nowhere near enough' which made a refreshing change from the whiter-than-white answers most politicians give to questions like that. You may argue that these are not the best reasons for voting somebody into power, but in my view it puts him light years ahead of Boris Johnson, who also found his way to Uxbridge this week, presumably by accident although I guess you never know. The sight of a bunch of fat deformed sycophants plying him with compliments and requests for photographs was nearly enough to cause my breakfast to make a return appearance.

We had a budget last week, which gave the coalition Government another chance to reduce the tax burden on the richest members of society by victimising the least well off and the old age pensioners. And then there's the petrol 'crisis' - did YOU fill up your jerrycan with fuel that you didn't know you needed just because that nice Mr. Maude told you to? After all you don't want those nasty smelly loony-lefty tanker drivers ruining you Easter driving for you now do we? Ah - there's nothing like a bit of panic buying to take the country's mind off the fact that it's just been ripped off left right and centre, and of course to turn everybody against the unions in the process. In the event it all seems to have backfired on the Government for once and they're now saying that there's was no need to top up on petrol after all, which presumably means that they've raised in increased duty revenue from the last few day's hysteria to fund another tax cut for the wealthy. The next thing they'll say is that they never said that we should buy extra petrol in the first place - after all, Francis Maude still seems to have a job, and surely he'd be out of office if he'd made a mistake like that - wouldn't he?

And then there's VAT on hot takeaway food - who'd have thought that politicians would be so serious about pasties? I hope that next time some chinless wonder on the election trail in Cornwall is forced against his will to eat some of the local produce for a photo they're given a freezing cold one because it's cheaper.

Cynical? Me? Maybe - but I've mused here before on how I can never see how any working class person can vote for the Conservative Party and I still can't, although I'm beginning to apply the same criteria to the Liberal Democrats too.

Meanwhile The Uppercut gave a riotous performance at The Kings Arms in Harefield on Saturday evening. The band played there back in October while I was away - my good mate and ex-Awaken guitarist Pete filled in for me then and by all accounts a splendid time was had by all then, and it certainly was this time. That said things began badly for your humble narrator when our opening number 'Dock Of The Bay' was interrupted by some particularly unpleasant buzzing and crackling sounds from my amplifier. It got so bad that I had to leave the lads to finish the song without me while I attempted to discover what was going on. I thought that perhaps a valve had worked loose so pushed them all back into their sockets; sadly the same problem remained. Out of increasing desperation I unplugged my guitar lead from the amplifier and the noises stopped - I'd never heard a dodgy guitar cable make a sound like that before but replacing it seemed to do the trick. That said I'll still check the amp over in the next few days. Our first set built up well, with a chap doing some particularly animated dancing in front of us and more and more people coming in from the front bar to have a listen; the second set really took off with much dancefloor action and a great reception for our efforts with the only downside coming when our singer Terry was hit in the teeth by his microphone when the particularly animated dancing man got even more animated and bumped into him. Ouch!

Sunday I made my way over to Loughton to rehearse with Department S, who I'm depping with on bass for two gigs this month. This may sound an unlikely state of affairs and indeed probably is however you look at it, but as often happens there's a simple enough explanation. The 'new' guitarist in the band is Sam Burnett who I played a gig with on bass a couple of years ago. (Click here for the story.) When regular bassman Mark said he was unavailable for these shows Sam suggested me - top man! So it was then that I joined him, Mike (guitar) Stuart (drums) and Eddie (vocals) at Soundlab Studios for a very enjoyable blast through the songs for the gigs. I borrowed Sam's Tokai bass which sounded great through the Ampeg set-up in the studio - I hope it sounds as good on the gigs, and I hope the band sounds as good as it did in Loughton where we got on so well that we finished 90 minutes early. Now that's something that doesn't happen in rehearsals too often.

And last night I saw Public Image Limited at Heaven in London's Charing Cross. At times the 2 1/2 hour set often trod a very fine line between repetition and monotony, although somehow they always seemed to be on the right side of the line. John Lydon was as engaging a performer as ever - in other words, one of the very best you're ever likely to see - and the band played with skill and precision throughout. The new songs sounded every bit as good as the old ones, the old ones sounded every bit as good as I remember them sounding and the capacity crowd loved them for it. Great stuff all round -and if I see as performance as intense as last night's version of 'Religion II' ('turn up the bass' said Lydon repeatedly - it ended up being so loud all my clothes were vibrating. And I've just shaken off an earwax problem... mind you it gave me some ideas for the Dept. S gigs!) then, well, it'll probably be PiL playing it somewhere else, if you see what I mean.

As the show ended an chap stopped me, told me to take no notice of him as he was drunk, then said that he though Lydon was 'turning into Yes, turning into everything he hated'. I took no notice of him - he told me not to after all - and anyway, he was wrong. Very wrong.

And there's just time to mention that I'm guest panellist on Music Scene Investigation this coming Sunday 8th April at 9pm - let's see what songs they throw at me this time!

Unlimited supply

Malcolm McLaren died earlier today. He was 64 years old.

Would we all be wearing flares now if it wasn't for him? Probably not, although let's face it, some people still do.

Would The Sex Pistols have been anything other than a dream if it wasn't for him? Probably not, although I personally think that they still would have been The Sex Pistols that we all know and love - we just might never have heard of them.

Would the last quarter of the 20th century have been quite as much fun without him? Probably not, although I for one await John Lydon's thoughts on that subject with no little interest!

For what my opinion's worth, he might well have been the catalyst that sparked the revolution, although I'm not entirely sure that the revolution wouldn't have happened (or indeed was happening) anyway... but for doing whatever it was that he did and for doing it so well, we all should be grateful - not sure about the tartan suits though...

'You're a loudmouth baby...'

I have just - just! - returned from working up at 'W.W.R.Y.' with Stuart the guitar repair man (since you asked I changed 7 sets of strings on the B.M.'s while Stu replaced a jack socket in an Ovation electro-acoustic guitar) and, as often happens on a Thursday, there was a little man standing at the top of the steps to Tottenham Court Road Underground station handing out copies of the ever-entertaining 'Shortlist' free magazine as we arrived. Among the various articles and interviews was this one which I thought I'd reproduce here for your perusal.

It's interesting - I suspect that most people find characters like Liam Gallagher very annoying at best and even just plain ignorant at worst, but will also rather grudgingly admit that they're often saying what a lot of us are thinking but don't actually have the nerve to say. (I would say that John Lydon definitely fits into this category, and you could argue that some of the lines of questioning pursued by Jonathan Ross does too.)

So - how many of Liam's comments do you agree with? And - maybe more importantly - how many made you smile? I for one won't hear Florence + The Machine in quite the same way again...

Yes I know the article's small but click on it and it won't be! Excellent!

Anger is an energy

Public Image Ltd. (Pil) were never the easiest band to like. A brilliant eponymous first single was followed by an album 'First Issue' which could politely be described as 'challenging'; it's follow-up 'Metal Box' was if anything even more uncompromising and the third 'Flowers Of Romance' blew away pretty much any fans of the lead singer's first band who were still gamely hanging on in the hope that he'd return to a sound that approached that band's former glories. Me? I loved the first single (I bought it in it's mock newspaper sleeve) but struggled with the first album (I bought it anyway) 'though I made more sense of the second album (which I bought in it's original, er, metal box format) and I liked the title track of the third... as the 1980's progressed they moved through various line-up changes with the aforementioned lead singer as the only constant member, releasing some excellent singles and some fine albums along the way before winding up in 1992. Against most if not all of the odds they've just reformed for a series of live performances, one of which I saw at The Electric Ballroom in Camden Town last night. Opening with 'Public Image' and playing for over 2 hours they (John Lydon, Lu Edmonds, Scott Firth and Bruce Smith) touched all parts of the band's catalogue in a fine set which showed the diversity of their material, from the synth-pop of 'This Is Not A Love Song' to the near metal funk of 'Death Disco'. And Lydon was, well, Lydon with all that that entails- with a voice that literally went from a whisper to a scream via all points in between and an unrivalled line in dealing with the inevitable hecklers and missile throwers ('you are in a house of friends here, do not make yourself into an enemy') he remains a total one-off, as brilliantly captivating as the band itself. It really wouldn't be the same without him, and after Pil's performance last night it wouldn't be the same without them- let's hope they don't leave it 17 years before the next gigs...