Hey Ho, Let's Go!

And so it goes on - much of the last week was spent at The Music Complex in Deptford rehearsing for this coming Wednesday's Joe Strummer film show at Koko. Songs were learned then discarded, re-learned then re-discarded (does that last word exist? Answers on a postcard please, usual address...) and we're still not sure who's singing which song. It looks like it'll be an early start on Wednesday then... but the band is sounding good - joining myself and fellow Ruts D.C. member Dave Ruffy (that's how I got the job!) are Tim Slade on bass (he plays for Gary Numan among others) and Tom Edwards on guitar (he works with Adam Ant - I'm really do feel like a junior partner here!) and even though I say so myself we've made a good job of things. It goes without saying that I'm looking forward to Wednesday - but I've said it anyway!

I was supposed to be playing at a wedding last night but it got cancelled (our show that is, not the wedding. Well I don't think that got cancelled!) so rather than do my already-depped-out Big Al gig (I don't like that thing where band members 'take back' a gig because they become available - do you?) I went to see The Ramonas at The 100 Club. Support came from the always-worth-seeing Louise Distras who appeared with a band rather than as her usual solo self. For me her voice worked better in this format - it's sometimes a bit too much for me over just an acoustic guitar, but she sounded great here. Afterwards she told me that she's hoping to concentrate more on group shows rather than solo, so let's hope hope that it works out for her. And The Ramonas were great too - a 28 song set (I wasn't counting, Chloe Ramona said it at the end, honest!) that featured many of the best Ramones songs played at a suitably breakneck pace to a healthily-sized crowd, all of whom loved ever minute of it. A splendid evening.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the first Price show. 30 years! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun eh? Actually it flies whether you're having fun or not... we were hoping to play a show this weekend - sadly that fell through but hopefully we'll be performing somewhere soon. And what better way for me to celebrate this (ahem!) momentous occasion than by going to see The Who? So that's what I'm doing, as they're playing at The O2 Arena tonight - but first I'm off to Abbey Road Studios. Yes, that Abbey Road Studios. Strange days indeed...

Ace of clubs

It's been a week of two Central London clubs with numbers in their names. Hopefully one of them will still be there this time next year...

The first Resolution Festival took place at The 100 Club last week - I say 'first' because it looks as though this one was such a success that there will be another one next year, which can only be good news if you think about it. I attended all 5 nights (I now have no money whatsoever!) and can indeed confirm that it really was a great event, with The Anti Nowhere League, 999, Ed Tudor-Pole, The Lurkers, Louise Distras, The U.K. Subs and Chris Spedding all delivering excellent sets and the Ruts D.C. night with The Duel being everything that we had hoped for and more. Audience numbers were good especially considering the time of year, and overall the event really was a wonderful thing to be part of. 
Our gig on Thursday night began with a 5 o'clock soundcheck after which we all dispersed into the West End for food and to meet up with assorted friends and faces - I arrived at The Ship in Wardour Street to be confronted by Rat Scabies and various other luminaries, all of whom had clearly been there for quite some time (!) and who were unaware that we were playing just a few hundred yards down the road. Much jollity ensued when Dave and Segs arrived, and Rat made it along to our gig where I believe he was involved in a altercation which resulted in him being obliged to leave before the end. Oo-er! 
I got back to The 100 Club to find The Duel sounding good and the place filling up nicely - by the time we went on at 9.30 it was pretty much full. Our set was notable for including the first electric performance of 'Secondhand Child', a new song that we played as part of our acoustic set at The Rebellion Festival last year and which will hopefully form part of an album that we're planning to record this year. Things began well and got better, and despite demands for a second encore being thwarted by an 11 o'clock live music curfew we all agreed that this was a great start to 2015. Onwards and upwards as the old saying goes. 
Oddly enough I had another encounter with a rat on the way home, when I got off the train to be confronted by a particularly grim-looking rodent on the path out of the station. We eyed each other up (I'd like to think!) for what seemed like ages but was actually probably only a couple of seconds before my four-legged acquaintance skulked off into the nearby bushes. It was raining, and as I commenced my weary walk home I remember thinking something like 'I felt like a guitar hero two hours ago, now I'm stumbling home in the rain with only a rat for company - shouldn't I be in the back of a limousine snorting cocaine off a page 3 girl's arse with a £50 note?' 

It's a funny old life sometimes isn't it?  

Meanwhile Sunday saw an all-day event to mark the end of The 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street. After much speculation and despite a high profile petition corporate greed has won and the area is being redeveloped, which is likely to see an end to what has been a World-renowned focus for musical instrument shops, recording studios and the British music industry in general. As faceless Government goons - rats of another kind - line up to spout vacuous drivel about how they're 'ensuring the preservation of the rich tradition and heritage of the area' yet another piece of history is stolen from us in the name of 'progress'. Perhaps they'd like to explain how they intend to do that by pulling the bloody place down and turning it into a theme park?!? The bastards. Still this really was a day to remember, with people queueing around the block to get in and countless bands turning up for a chance to squeeze onto that strange little stage just one more time. Highlights were many and varied (The Fallen Leaves blistering set was probably the winner for me, but only just) and The London Sewage Company played 4 songs early in proceedings. I thought this would be my last appearance at the club, but I joined Sarah Pink there last night to finish her set with 'Teenage Kicks'. And with that I bade farewell to The 12 Bar Club - so hard to beat, as somebody once sang. 

New Year's Resolution

And so the new year begins. Oh hang on, didn't I say that last time...

Not a bad line-up eh?

My first gig of the year as an audience member was at Tropic At Ruislip last Friday when I witnessed a performance by original Wishbone Ash bass player Martin Turner. Apparently legal restrictions mean that he's not allowed to call it something like 'Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash' - hence the rather unwieldy 'Martin Turner and friends play the music of Wishbone Ash... and beyond' on the poster. Strange days indeed. I don't mind saying that musically it's not really my sort of thing, but I went along as I have good memories of my older cousins in Birkenhead playing their 'Argus' album (among many others) when we used to visit them during school holidays in the 1970s. I also think that it's good to support live music in our area on a night when I'm not out playing myself although that probably sounds a bit self-righteous? Oh well - maybe it is! Anyway they were very good indeed, with probably the best sound that I've ever heard in the venue. I may not be rushing out to buy their entire back catalogue, but it was definitely a good show to start my gig - going year with.

And Sunday afternoon's Upper Cut show at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook was definitely a good start to my gig-playing year - it's always a bit weird starting at 5pm but there were quite a few people in and there was dancing more-or-less from the word go; our two sets flew by and we were still playing well past our allotted end time of 8 o'clock. Great stuff all round.

This week all roads lead to The 100 Club, where Ruts D.C. are among various luminaries playing at The Resolution Festival. After the splendid 'The Clash - New Year's Day '77' show on BBC4 last week I for one am definitely in the mood for some punk rock, and it doesn't get much better than this does it? See you down the front!

'In a bar Johnny drinks, Johnny drinks Johnnie Walker...'

Jon 'Fat' Beast has died. I first met him when he gave The Price a gig at one of the Timebox nights that he was running at The Bull And Gate in Kentish Town - he liked our band and even offered to release a single by us on Timebox Records. We saw him at many gigs over the next few years, maybe the most memorable of which was when we supported Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine at The Guildhall in Gloucester back in 1991. They recorded the promo film for 'Bloodsport For All' that night - he's not in that but he's certainly in this clip of 'Surfin' USM' recorded the same year. All together now - 'you fat bastid, you fat bastid...'

In the meantime, that was the birthday that was... actually on the day itself (Thursday in case you were wondering) I did, well, nothing much. I spent much of my time listening to The Who (always a good move don't you think?) and playing guitar, and didn't leave the house until I went to the local Indian takeaway where I bought myself a vegetable Biriani. Decadent Days eh?!? By the time the evening's gig came around I was half asleep, bored and desperate for something to do - they say that the most tiring thing in the world is doing nothing don't they? Well they - whoever 'they' are - just might be right on that one... the evening's show with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks at The Sunningdale Lounge went well, even if it was a somewhat unlikely setting for your humble narrator to spend his birthday evening at. Still at was back to more familiar territory the next night, when The Upper Cut played The Dolphin in Uxbridge. A raucous performance began a little after 9.30pm with 'Substitute' and finished well after midnight with 'Stay With Me' (we had an interval, we didn't play all the way through!) and since we've played there on or around July 24th for the last couple of years I'll be doing my best to book the band in there again next year. Afterwards drinks were drunk and I got home sometime around 3 o'clock in the morning amid some confusion. A splendid evening - and did myself and Huggy really plot some 30th-years-since-our-first-show Price gigs next year? Yes, I believe that we did... 

Given the previous evening's antics it was something of a miracle that I made it to Balcony Shirts just as Dave was opening the front door at 9am. Vast application of coffee and fried eggs sandwiches followed, and all things considered I made it through a fairly busy day reasonably unscathed. From there it was off to The Swan in Iver, where Big Al and the band played an outdoor show as part of the annual family fun day. We were on at half past six - as our set progressed it felt as though rain could be a possibility, which as we were playing in the garden with no roof above us could have been something of a dangerous situation for us to be in. Thankfully the weather stayed good and our show went ahead with no problems, after which we saw a few songs by local duo 2Tone before heading off to Go Sing in West Drayton for far too much Chinese food. Excellent!

And last night I saw Television at The Shepherds Bush Empire. To describe their debut album 'Marquee Moon' as 'a classic' barely does it justice - it is quite simply one of the best albums of all time. But more about them in a minute - support came from Louise Distras, who seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment. Her set was well received by the assembled multitude, and her last song 'The Hand You Hold' had more than a few people singing along, a sure sign that she's getting through. And Television were absolutely terrific, with Tom Verlaine as unconventional as ever (I don't remember the last time that I saw a frontman ask for less light on stage!) and the band sounding great from start to finish. 'Marquee Moon' was featured in it's entirety and sounded as timelessly brilliant as ever as did their first single 'Little Johnny Jewel', while the final encore of 'Psychotic Reaction' reminded us all of where all this stuff came from in the first place. A fine evening - and not a bad birthday present to myself don't you think?!

Distant relatives

I have just - just! - returned from playing four shows with Ruts D.C. :-

Not a bad evening's
entertainment!

After a suitably long 'it's-Friday-afternoon-traffic' journey with new face Mark behind the steering wheel we arrived at The Brudenell Rooms in Leeds around 5pm. We're on with T.V. Smith (who I hadn't seen since our duo gig at The 12 Bar Club before Christmas - we're playing our first show of this year at The New Cross Inn this coming Saturday - and who has been on tour in Europe with The U.K. Subs for the last few weeks) and Louise Distras (who was also on The 12 Bar Club show and who has also been on tour in Europe) so there's a fine evening in prospect. We're set up and soundchecked in good time - I'm putting my guitar away and talking to T.V. and Louise when I sneeze, sneeze again, then look down to see blood at my feet. Time for a nosebleed then... Louise helpfully fetches a handful of tissues and I spend T.V.'s soundcheck sitting on the stage trying to stop the blood flow. Dramatic eh? Actually it was pretty horrible, at one point literally streaming out. Urgh! Meanwhile the rest of the band went to check in at our hotel while the nosebleed eventually stopped and I watch Louise's soundcheck before setting up our merchandise stall. Chris the promoter opened the doors at 7 o'clock and people began arriving straight away - T.V. Smith mega-fan T.J. says hello and fellow Wilko Johnson obsessive Alan turns up with his two sons and presents me with a DVD of Wilko in Japan in 1992 and a 1995 tour programme (top man!) while the wonderfully-named Paul Newman asks me if The Price will be playing anywhere this year. I wonder if we will?
Just before 8 o'clock I bump into Louise who says 'I hope I don't break any strings' as she's making her way towards the stage; she doesn't but she does play an excellent set as does T.V. Smith. Then again, he usually does. By the time we went on the place was all but sold out, there's people dancing from the off and the show goes brilliantly. After encoring with 'In A Rut' and 'H-Eyes' we return to the dressing room but the audience is still going crazy and we somehow find ourselves back on stage - but we've played everything that we know, so what shall we do?
We'd had a rehearsal on Thursday evening during which we tightened up a few songs and began looking at other material that could possibly find it's way into the show. One of the songs that we tried was 'Generations' a song Segs recorded with Joe Strummer and Rat Scabies under the somewhat unlikely name of Electric Doghouse. We all agreed that it was definitely one to bear in mind for the future - unbeknownst to us the future was only one day away... it could be argued that in these days of YouTube it's not a good idea to play a song that you don't know, but we did it anyway! How did it sound? Like this...
After the show Mark and myself do a roaring trade on the merchandise stall and Dave and Segs signed old albums and singles, not-quite-so-old CDs, posed for photographs and made a lot of people very happy. I was even asked to do a couple of photos myself!
My first sight of Bewley's Hotel (I didn't go there earlier, remember?) included a couple of likely lads with their trousers around their ankles outside the main entrance. Friday night in Leeds then... Seamus and myself decide that we want to see what's going on so get a couple of drinks amid sights and sounds of great drunkenness and jollity from stag parties, hen parties and parties generally. A couple of chairs away from us a chap slides off his seat onto the floor a bit like a cartoon character might, he's out cold and his friends can't wake him up - suddenly the atmosphere changes and the hotel staff summon two paramedics and a voice over the tannoy asks us all to move out from the bar into the entrance hall. A few minutes later two of his friends are helping the now-just about-upright man towards the lift - 'we've never had a night like this!' says the barman cheerily as we hand him our glasses and chaos resumes all around us. Later we take the lift to the 4th floor where we're sharing room 441 - as the doors open there's a large upturned plant pot in front of us with flowers and soil everywhere. Why do people do things like that?

The next day begins in a leisurely manner that's very welcome after the previous day and evening. After breakfast we check out at midday and by 2 o'clock we're arriving at The Sporting Lodge Hotel in Middlesbrough. After checking in (Seamus and myself get room 122) it's time for some food - I get an excellent arrabiatta pasta which I just about finish before my nose starts bleeding again. Urgh!
It's only a short drive to The Georgian Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees and we're loading our gear in not long after 5 o'clock. Steve the promoter has got a couple of lads to help us carry our equipment (hurrah!) and we've got Green Dragon Studios to use as a dressing room. Soundcheck is a bit more involved than on the previous evening with the drum sound posing a few problems for our soundman Nick but he eventually gets everything sounding great. 
Support comes from The Clashed who I met last summer when The Flying Squad played with them; they've still got Joe and Mick the wrong way around (as you can see here) and they still do a good job of recreating the sound and the fury of The Clash, which is much appreciated by the rapidly-arriving crowd. The show has sold out in advance which usually bodes well for things but in this case it felt as though it all took a while to get going - we start with three reggae-based songs which I don't think was quite what the audience was expecting. There was a chap standing right at the very front wearing a white Ruts logo t-shirt who didn't look too happy until our fourth song 'Backbiter' when he suddenly bursts into life, as did many of the people around him. It was definitely harder work than the previously evening although as you can see if you watch the show here it all came good in the end. 
As I'm putting my guitar away a chap comes over, he's says that he really enjoyed the show but wondered if he seen me supporting The Ruts in Middlesbrough back in the day, wearing glasses and playing rock 'n' roll songs. He looks disappointed when I tell him that it wasn't me but was a chap called Auntie Pus (who incidentally has just written this blog piece on last week's Bristol show. Thanks Julian!)

I always wanted to be
 a tourist attraction!

It's a 5-ish hour drive to the next show so we set out at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning. 'Snow capped peaks to our right' says Dave as we pass through some spectacular scenery on our way to Dundee. We stop at a motorway service station where we see a poster for the gig in the tourist information display - excellent!
We arrived at The Reading Rooms just after 5pm. (Again! It's always 5pm!) Promoter Jim is a massive fan of the band and was present at a legendary Dundee gig back in 1979 when Segs and Malcolm let him and his friends in through a back window. There are only a few tickets left and he's hopeful that the gig will be a sellout which makes the already good mood in the band even better. The P.A. is superb and the sound is absolutely excellent - Dave and myself jam on 'Lust For Life' for no other reason than 'we just started playing it'.
I'm behind the merchandise table again as Jock Hart arrives, he's a big fan of the band (as you can tell from this review that he wrote of the evening) and it's good to see him again. Business is brisk and I sadly spend much of the support set by The Spitfires presiding over a merchandising frenzy although I managed to see their last few songs including a version of 'Career Opportunities' and I thought that they sounded great. A difficult band to follow, but follow them we do with a storming performance, one of the best that we have yet played. Afterwards we sell umpteen CDs, run out of Ruts logo t-shirts and meet people who say that it was the best show that they've ever seen by anybody ever. A successful evening's work.

It was another early start yesterday as our last show of what Dave called our 'tourette' was at Eric's in Liverpool. I thought breakfast finished at 10.30 but it actually stopped half an hour earlier meaning that I ate a bowl of muesli standing up looking out over The River Tay as clearing up went on all around me. 
I spent a fair amount of the journey to Liverpool drifting in and out of consciousness - the last few days were catching up with me! We stopped at Lockerbie Service Station for food and fuel (Nick pronounced his burger as 'a mistake') and found our way to Liverpool in good time (can you guess what time we arrived?!?) with Mark reversing into Mathew Street from North John Street with great aplomb. It's a long load-in as we have to walk our equipment past The Cavern and down a seriously steep flight of stairs into the club. As we're setting up I say hello support band Biteback's guitarist Richie who also plays in The Crows, he says how much he's looking forward to the evening and I tell him he's not the only one...
After soundchecking I went upstairs to call my cousin Steve (my phone wouldn't work in the club) who lives over the water in Birkenhead and who is coming to see us play. Or is he? He's got no money, not even enough for the train fare to Liverpool but he's waiting for his next door neighbour to come in as he's going to lend him the cash. When I ask him how much he needs his answer of £6 seems barely believable. I think about how often we all squander money (well, I certainly do!) but if you've got nothing then even a small sum of money seems like a fortune. I tell him I'll call him back in a while to see how he's getting on - in the meantime we walk through the city to The Holiday Inn opposite Lime Street Station. We're checking in as Molara meets a couple of friends who are coming along to the show. Hmm... he looks familiar... she introduces me to 'Jamie' and I realise that it's Jamie Reid - I mumble something about how much I like his work to which he smiles and says that he's really looking forward to seeing the show. Excellent.
As I walk back towards Eric's I call Steve - it's not going well, his mate still hasn't arrived and time is getting on, I tell him to get a cab over to the top of Mathew Street where I'll meet him and pay for it and his return fare home but he gets upset saying that he doesn't want charity, I tell him that it's not charity it's family and that he can pay me back sometime if he wants to and then I'm getting upset too... by now I've walked past the turning to the venue and along Duke Street towards the Ferry landing stage and I'm looking out across The River Mersey and can see the lights of Birkenhead over the water, he's only over there but he might as well be on another planet, neither of us knows what to do but he says he'll call me back if his mate turns up. I stand on the landing stage looking across the river - me and my brother Terry grew up with Steve and his late brother Gary, they were more like our older brothers than our cousins and as I stand there I can remember a thousand things that we've done together. I feel helpless; I also feel very alone. Bugger. I walk back up the hill, past The Liverpool pub near James Street Station where Steve's train would come in, past a bus queue, back up Duke Street, feeling like I didn't know anything anymore... then as I turn into North John Street my phone suddenly rings - it's Steve's girlfriend Lizzie who says that his mate's come home and lent him some money and he's getting ready to come out to the gig and will be with me in a half hour or so. Amazing! Steve comes on the phone sounding like he's won the lottery and saying that everything's ok and he'll see me soon. Thank God for that... by the time I get to the club I'm in a much better frame of mind, as I'm about to go downstairs a chap asks me what time the band are on, as I tell him 9.30 he spots my Bored Teenager badge that T.V. Smith gave me on Friday night and we're all smiles as we both agree how great his latest album is. What a difference a few minutes can make eh? As I turn towards the club I see Phil from Louder Than War who apparently was standing there all the time. I really did have other things on my mind didn't I?
8.30 and Biteback take to the stage. It's their first show as a four piece, the young lady on rhythm guitar looks a bit reticent at first but things soon get going. They play 'English Civil War' (it was definitely a weekend for Clash cover versions!) which fits in well among their own material and they go down better and better as their show progresses. Then I spot a familiar figure in the doorway - it's Steve. I don't remember the last time that I was so pleased to see someone.

'And I... wanna be...
anarchy...'

9.30 and we're on - the place isn't full but there's definitely enough people in to make it work (the show was slotted in at the last minute and as Ethan at the club put it, 'it's a Monday night and the day after St. Patrick's Day') but what they lack in numbers they more than made up for in enthusiasm. The show is a bit looser than the others with lots of storytelling from Segs and Dave coming out to the front of the stage to thank everyone for coming and to introduce the band. Overall it's a great show to end this run of gigs with, and in the dressing room Steve tells me that he really enjoyed it which means everything to me. Then Jamie Reid came over and asked me if I'd like him to sign my guitar - I'd half-jokingly said it to Molara earlier and she'd arranged it with him, meaning that I might well have the only Jamie Reid signature model Les Paul in existence. Strange but true. Then it's time for Steve to catch his train home, we blather at each other like kids, share a hug and then he's gone. I'm so glad that he made it along.
With everything packed away it's time to go back to the hotel - or is it? Phil asks me if I fancy a drink so we adjourn to The Grapes for an hour or so. As a young man plays guitar and sings over backing tracks in the other bar and Beatle - hunting tourists take endless photos of the walls he asks about the last few days - I say that I must have shaken 100 hands and heard the words 'I've waited over 30 years for this night' almost as many times. You don't know how lucky you are sometimes do you?

This morning I was in the hotel shower, thinking about how great the shows and the last few days had been, what the music means to me and to the audience, the mixture of emotions that the previous night had bought out in me - as I rinsed the soap off my face I opened my eyes to see blood on my hands. Another nosebleed. Back to the real world. You don't get something for nothing do you?  

'The better it gets, the better it gets...'

It's six years last week since Wiz from The Mega City Four died, and by way of a tribute Louder than War have posted an interview that the band did with the much-missed 'Sounds' magazine from June 1989. I saw them play many times (and indeed The Price played quite a few shows supporting them) and at their best they were one of the most uplifting bands that I've ever seen. I can't pretend to have been Wiz's best mate or anything like that but I did know him quite well around that time, and I last saw him at an Ipanema gig many years later when he'd lost none of his enthusiasm for playing music. You can read the interview here; it's good to see him being remembered by tributes such as this - and we could really do with a band as passionate and exciting as The Mega City Four these days couldn't we?

And Patrick Moore and Huw Lloyd-Langton have both died - both travellers in outer space!

Two good gigs for your humble narrator last weekend :-

My name's on the poster! Yeah!

Friday saw the much-looked-forward-to (by me at least) show at The 12 Bar Club with T.V. Smith. Also on the bill were The Lost Cherrees, Root Awakening featuring Pascal Briggs, Louise Distras, The Crows and Texas Terri, and although I didn't manage to see any of the acts all the way through from what I did see everybody played really well. I saw Dermot from The Charred Hearts for the first time since The Rebellion Festival back in August (he was present when I somehow managed to knock a parasol over in the backstage catering area!) and also bumped into Attila The Stockbroker who was supporting The Men They Couldn't Hang over at The Borderline; by the time we went on at 10.45 pm the place was absolutely packed - it's only small but it's a great place to play, and with Pascal joining us for the last few numbers of our set (these three clips give you a good idea of how it all looked and sounded - that's Pascal in the middle) and us encoring with 'Runaway Train Driver' to an incredible reaction it has to be one of my favourite gigs of 2012. I'd loved to have stayed around afterwards to talk to some people but I had to leave to get the tube home; after I'd missed the last train because I had to go back to the club to get my bag which I'd forgotten due to rushing to get out I of course had time to talk all night... bugger! In the end I got home via two night buses which put a bit of a dampener on things, but let's face it, that's not the worst thing that will ever happen!
Saturday saw The Upper Cut visit The Armoury in Wandsworth for the first time. Sadly Roger was unable to make the show due to illness so Geoff 'Rockschool' Nicholls once again depped on drums, for a show that went well despite a rather low turnout - when we started there were only a handful of people in the building, although it did fill out a bit as the evening went on. Terry the bass introduced me to Pete from The Atlantic Soul Machine - I'm depping with them (Terry plays with them all the time) on Christmas Eve at The Bulls Head in Barnes so it was good to meet him. Geoff played well - actually we all played well - and Paul the landlord said that he'd like us back next year, so it was definitely a good night all round.

And it was definitely a good night all round at The Load Of Hay in Uxbridge on Sunday, when Steve Simpson (ably aided and abetted by his brother Bruce on mandolin and guitar and Bob Pearce on drums) played a superb show. I've not been involved in putting on gigs there for a while - to be honest I got a bit disillusioned with audience apathy - but this event reminded me why I did it in the first place. That said there could have been more people there (lots of folk said they'd come along, few actually did) but those who were there saw three superb musicians playing at the top of their game. A fine evening.

And I have just - just! - returned from rehearsing with The Flying Squad; we're supporting Dr. Feelgood at Tropic At Ruislip this coming Friday 14th December, which really should be a night to remember...

There's a riot goin' on

So, own up - had you heard of Pussy Riot before last week?

I'd seen their name here and there, usually reporting on their guerrilla-style media events, and I did read something about them being detained for doing something or other (here is the video of what they actually did) in a church earlier this year, although I must admit that I didn't give it too much thought. They've been in the news a bit more lately though, and with good reason - surely that's a very harsh sentence for dancing around in a balaclava and expressing a few opinions about President Putin? Then again, how would the Great British public have reacted if they'd done a similar thing in, say, St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey? Many people have given their thoughts to the subject, but I think the excellent Louise Distras has made a particularly powerful contribution which you can read here and see her perform here - makes you think doesn't it? Well it certainly got to me. 

On to more mundane matters - I started this blog on August Bank Holiday weekend 2006. What began as an innocent attempt to improve my typing and computing skills has since become a sprawling monster, a leviathan that has all but taken over my God-forsaken life to the point that it dominates what little spare time I still have... well that's probably a bit of an exaggeration but I sometimes wonder if I do spend too much time on it - after all, I'm never really sure if anybody actually reads it or not. That said, maybe that's not the most important thing - after all, my typing and computing skills have definitely improved, I really enjoy writing it and it remains the nearest thing to a hobby that I have outside of music so perhaps I should stop moaning (for once!) and get on with writing the damn thing...  

Two shows with two different bands this weekend, the first of which took place at a wedding reception in a tent at the astonishingly-named Trickley Coppice near Tamworth. (You know, it's almost worth writing this stuff just for sentences like that last one!) Matt's on vocals, Kylan's on bass, Rob's on keyboards and Adam's on drums (all of whom play together regularly in the Briefcase Blues Brothers band) and we're calling ourselves THE 20th CENTURY BOYS, which was a name nearly used for the band in the ill-fated Cool Britannia shows earlier this year. With the nearest thing to a rehearsal being a 10 minute talk-through-the-songs in the field outside the tent to decide on keys and endings (and, since there was no dressing room, to get changed - that's the first time I've had to do that for a while) it was down to us all to have done our homework, and it certainly sounded as though everybody had. There was inevitably a couple of slip-ups but nothing too major went wrong; Matt's occasional Blues Brothers partner Paul sang a few songs, and there was plenty of dancefloor action throughout. Great stuff, even if I did have to spend more time learning 'Mr. Brightside' (bloody hell that introduction is difficult to play!) than I did the rest of our set put together. Oh and talking of slip-ups the torrential rain that fell during the festivities had turned the field outside the tent into something approaching a quagmire by the time we'd finished, which along with the fact that it seemed like no one had thought to provide very much in the way of outside lighting made for a very interesting time loading our gear out. 

And it was a very interesting time on Saturday evening, depping with The Cane Toads in Ealing. I first saw them around 15 years ago when I remember thinking that they mostly consisted of members of local lads The Attendants who I saw a couple of times back in the day. They split up a couple of years ago with guitarist Pete and bassist Ken going on to form the now-defunct Awaken, and Pete deps for me in The Upper Cut from time to time. They reconvened to play at a house party this weekend, and with guitarist Malcolm and the afore-mentioned Ken both unavailable Pete, vocalist Martin and drummer Bruce were joined by Chris on bass (who's in a band with Martin and Bruce - keep up at the back there!) and your humble narrator on guitar. We were playing under a gazebo in the back garden which from what I can gather had tarpaulin sides added to it  earlier in the day; without them there was no way that we could have played, as holding an electric guitar in the torrential rain that fell during our first set would have redefined the term 'danger of electrocution'. As it was some water still got in, and my amplifier fused during 'Dani California' (just as I got to the guitar solo - bah! They played 'The One I Love' without me while I fixed it) and it continued to make some rather dubious noises throughout the rest of the set (nothing to do with my playing for once!) which was hopefully down to moisture rather than the amp being faulty. Overall it was a successful evening with all the guests seeming to enjoy our efforts, and it seems to me to be a shame that The Cane Toads aren't playing together more often these days. A good (if rather perilous) gig - and I've just realised that I learned over fifty songs for the two shows, with only five common to both. Mad!

Sad news greeted me this morning when I saw that Neil Armstrong has died. As a lad I loved everything to do with the Moon landings of the late Sixties and early Seventies, and remember seeing the footage of him and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface with a mixture of excitement and disbelief, dreaming of a day when we'd all be able to go to The Moon and indeed all the planets in the Solar System as a matter of course, for a holiday or maybe even for a day trip. All good pre-teenage stuff, and as I say incredibly exciting. The Apollo 11 mission splashed down on my 8th birthday (nice of them to arrange that I thought) and I followed subsequent missions with great enthusiasm, all the while feeling a bit sorry for the guy up in The Command Module (Michael Collins in the case of Apollo 11) who didn't get to The Moon but circled around it, presumably watching his buddies messing about with flags and golf clubs several miles below. Years later conspiracy theories appeared suggested that it was all an elaborate hoax intended to take people's minds off The Vietnam War (among other things) which as a considerably more cynical grown-up I tried to take seriously - but I always found myself thinking of the little boy who looked at pictures of Americans in outrageous outfits taking 'one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' and who wished he was up there in space with them. 
Sometimes I wish that I was up there now. Well - who doesn't eh?

Cool Britannia

So let's start as we mean to go on, with a sneak preview of something that should be happening in 2012 if not before. 'COOL BRITANNIA' will (ahem!) attempt to tell the story of British rock music from the 1960s to the present day. Myself and some very familiar faces (Matt on vocals, Squirrel on bass, Chris on keyboards and Dave on drums - trivia fans may be interested to know that the drum kit in the photo is the one that he used on all the Ruts and Ruts D.C. recordings among many others. Oh and that's my Lemon Drop guitar just visible on the corner of the drum riser, and Pete Townshend on the back projection - not sure we'll get away with that!) spent much of yesterday at the excellent Clifftown Studios in Southend running through several songs with the intention of making a promotional film for the show. I'm sure that it will make it on to YouTube at some point in the not-too-distant future, and when it does I'll put a link on here. There are already theatre shows booked for next Spring (it seems a long way off but it'll soon come round!) and I for one am really looking forward to it.

And talking of YouTube links, click here for a Rebellion Festival video diary courtesy of Louise Distras - the short clip from our gig gives me chance to mention that I'm playing with T.V. Smith at the 12 Bar Club on Friday 4th November. Again it seems a long way off, but it'll soon come round...