Neurotic outsider

Colin Dredd, bass player with The Newtown Neurotics, died last week. I saw The Neurotics (as they were also known) play many times and our group The Price shared the bill with them on quite a few occasions - their uncompromising left wing stance ensured that (a) they achieved virtually no mainstream recognition as the terror of the Thatcher years unfolded all around them and indeed us, and (b) people like me loved them. Colin (real surname Masters) was always friendly, approachable and ready to talk to anybody about anything - it always seemed to me that he simply adored everything about being in the band. He will be missed by everyone who knew him and - I'd like to think - remembered by everybody who ever met him.
And Mac Poole died after a long battle with cancer. He will it seems always be remembered as the man who turned down the job in Led Zeppelin, but he drummed with great distinction for many acts in the succeeding years. He depped with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks several times, and I'll remember him as a great character with a rock 'n' roll story for every occasion. He was a heck of a drummer as well.

Ruts D.C. played two gigs over the weekend, the first of which saw us visit Italy for the first time. Arriving at Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 at the not-too-early (for once!) time of quarter to eight in the morning I met up with Dave and Segs, checked in and after a less-than-straightforward journey through security (shoes off, belts out of trousers, hand baggage unpacked) we launched ourselves enthusiastically at breakfast. We're playing at The Sottotetto Club in Bologna at an evening organised by Bologna City Rockers - I'd not played in Italy before so I'd been looking forward to this show for a while. Our first flight took us to Paris  - no, I'm not sure why we didn't / couldn't get a direct flight either - where we renegotiated security (shoes off etc) before flying to Bologna where we were met by the Bologna City Rockers team who took us to The Hotel Astor. After checking in an abortive attempt at finding a coffee shop followed (it seems that they close during the afternoon) after which we headed to the venue where things were ready for soundcheck. I had an excellent Marshall JCM 900 half stack (oh yes!) while Segs had a not-quite-so-excellent Ampeg set-up - it sounded bad from the word go so while Dave struggled with a faulty hi-hat clutch some anxious-sounding phone calls were made... eventually a gentleman arrived with another clutch, and after fiddling with the bass amp he announced that it was set in stereo mode, flicked a switch and everything sounded great. After soundchecking we walked over to a nearby bar where we were interviewed for the Bologna City Rockers radio show (or to be more accurate Dave and Segs were interviewed as the questions were about the original band) after which Lorenz took us to the La Perla restaurant where a frankly mind-boggling amount of food was provided - I'd been told that Bologna's nickname 'La Grassa' means 'the fat one' and refers to the local cuisine, and on this showing it wasn't hard to see how it got it's name. (Incidentally I can't find a website for the restaurant but it's highly recommended, if only because it serves a 'Metro Pizza' which we're told is 1 metre wide! Maybe next time!) By now it was nearly 10 o'clock but since we weren't due on until after midnight we decided to go back to our hotel for some much-needed rest. Well, it was certainly much-needed in my case.
Lorenz got us back to the venue for around 11.15 - there were people everywhere, and with the front part of the club resembling a record fair with vinyl, CD and t-shirt stalls all doing a roaring trade it was clear that this was going to be quite a night. Klaxon took to the stage just as we got to the dressing room, their set included a fine version of The Clash's 'Garageland' which is never a bad sign. We start with 'Something That I Said' and with the venue packed with people the sound has changed which prompts Segs to ask me to turn up as he can't hear what I'm playing. His mic stand collapses during 'Mighty Soldier' which causes much amusement, not least from him; by the middle of our set things are well on course for a great gig with people singing along with both the old Ruts songs and some lesser-known Ruts DC material. 'West One (Shine On Me)' triggers a mini stage invasion, 'Love In Vain' gets an almost football crowd - style singalong and the new song 'Secondhand Child' is greeted like an old friend. 'Staring At the Rude Boys', 'Babylon's Burning' and 'In A Rut' clearly are old friends to all concerned and the final encore of 'H-Eyes' finishes a great - make that GREAT - show. Afterwards there are numerous record covers for Dave and Segs to sign while a man who in my imagination resembles a Roman Centurion has tears in his eyes as he tells me that he'd 'waited 35 years for this show'. Amazing. 
Meanwhile the DJ is spinning old ska and rocksteady records (yes, records!) and no one is going home, we stay for a while before being reminded that we've got a plane to catch in a few hours...

My alarm goes off at 7am. Bugger. Three hours sleep didn't feel like nearly enough. Oh well. I have a shower then meet Dave at breakfast, there's no sign of Segs so Dave goes to knock on his door, he returns after no response so I suggest he calls his room from reception. Segs answers him with the news that he 'thought he'd heard some banging when he'd been in the shower'. Our taxi takes us to the airport where we attempt to pre-empt security by removing our shoes and belts first. It works - good. From there it's yesterday in reverse - there's time for a quick coffee at CDG before gate K53 takes us back to Heathrow where after a bit of 'how do we meet the bus?' shenanigans we hook up with Bob the soundman, Rhiannon the merch girl and James the new-to-us driver and set the controls for Cheadle Hulme where we're closing The Strummercamp Festival at Manchester Rugby Club. No, I'm not sure why we didn't fly to Manchester either... I guess ours is not to reason why sometimes?
We arrive in the Strummercamp backstage area just as Barnstormer are playing a, well, barnstorming set. Attila The Stockbroker dedicates a song to Colin from The Neurotics, they were old friends of course and he's got a picture of him taped to his mic stand which is a nice touch. Meanwhile we meet Phil and Mike from Bug who are lending us their guitar and bass amps for the gig, they played the day before and by all accounts got a great reception, to the extent that Phil has been stopped by people wanting to buy merch so many times that he's taken to walking around with a bag full of it! After finding out what time we need to be backstage to set up we take the only possible course of action under the circumstances and go to the bar, where it's clear that a lot of people are looking forward to our show. No pressure then... Dave and Segs go off to do another radio interview while I use my meal ticket to get a jacket potato - rock 'n' roll eh?
We return backstage in time to catch the last few songs by King Kurt who sound as great and indeed as mad as ever; the tent empties while we're setting up but fills up to capacity by the time 'S.T.I.S.' kicks things off once again. There's dancing from the word go and everybody is on top form - 'Secondhand Child' gets another good reception which as Dave says 'means a lot to us', and we encore with 'Brand New Cadillac' for Joe Strummer amid scenes of no little audience pandemonium. Afterwards the organisers go on stage to thank the audience for coming but it's us that should be thanking them - it was a real pleasure to be part of such a great festival.

These two gigs were bookended by two shows with Big Al and co., the first of which took place on Thursday at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale. I'd been rehearsing all day with Ruts D.C. so felt quite tired by the time I got to the venue but it turned out to be an enjoyable show with several new-to-the-act songs (they're old numbers, we didn't write any of them!) alongside the usual crowd pleasers. But if I was 'quite tired' on Thursday then I'm not sure what word describes my condition during Bank Holiday Monday's 5pm show at The North Star in Iver. Let's go for 'out on my feet' shall we? I got home less than an hour before I had to leave for the show - I played the gig, but I'm not sure how. I don't think that I played too well, and I was pretty wound up, especially when some fat drunken oaf kept on saying that he wanted to get up to sing 'Mustang Sally' with us... I think the contrast between successive shows sometimes gets the better of me, or something... perhaps I should call everyone to apologise... in fact I might do that now... hmmm...

Soho A Go-Go

It's Easter Monday and I've got a day off. It's feels like a while since I had one of those. Perhaps it is? In fact I'm beginning to wonder if I ever actually have a day off - after all, I'm sitting here now doing this blogging lark, then I've got songs to learn this afternoon... mind you, it's not exactly hard compared to some work is it? You know like digging holes for a living? Hmmm... I'm rambling... maybe I really do need a day off...

More about that another day - Wednesday evening saw a charity night at Q Vardis in Cowley organised by John Jenkins who used to run the Sunday jam nights at The Swan in Iver. Big Al, Pete and myself performed a few songs with the house band in an evening with saw a partial reunion of Meal Ticket (with Steve Simpson sounding as great as ever) and much more besides. A most enjoyable evening raised several hundred pounds for cancer research, which can only be a good thing if you think about it.

Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played The Sunningdale Lounge in (you've guessed it!) Sunningdale on Thursday followed by a gig at The King's Club on Canvey Island the following evening. The first show was a short notice affair confirmed only a few days before, and with Dave busy elsewhere Mac Poole once again depped on drums. I thought that we played well although maybe not quite up to the standard of recent shows, but everyone there seemed to love it, and Graham the guv'nor rebooked the band immediately. It's good when that happens! The next night saw the band venture into cabaret territory for the first time, with Joe Longthorne as the headline act. Chris (keyboards) and Terry (bass) were late and didn't arrive until our allotted stage time of 8pm - a frantic set-up meant that we were playing by 8.15. I wasn't sure if the band would work well in this sort of environment but as so often happens Al won the crowd over and the dance floor was all but full by the end of our first set. Al then did 20 minutes of comedy after which Joe Longthorne took to the stage. Singing over backing tracks he seemed to me to be a bit uncomfortable with proceedings, holding the microphone a long way from his face when he wasn't singing meaning that his between song patter was all but inaudible; this lead to quite a few complaints from people who couldn't hear what he was saying and I felt he lost the audience somewhat as a result. Very strange... still when we returned for our second set the dancing resumed almost immediately, and after Bill the compare had joined us for 'Kansas City' he sang several songs to bring the evening to a close. An interesting night - I've not done much cabaret! - which couldn't have been more different to the day and night that followed...

Record Store Day has been running since 2007 - it's held on the third Saturday in April and I believe it's pretty much a Worldwide event these days. In London festivities centre around Berwick Street in The West End, and this year an open air concert featuring Ruts D.C. among others was held on the junction of Berwick Street and D'Arblay Street. I arrived just as Edwyn Collins was beginning his set - with two acoustic guitarists either side of him he sat stage centre and got a good reaction from the rapidly-arriving crowd, with his closing song 'A Girl Like You' inciting smiles all round. Sadly I missed most of the Augustines set as Pablo (who was helping us with our equipment and generally co-ordinating our efforts on the day) and myself attempted to gain entry to Sister Ray Records where we were due to store our equipment until it was time for our show. The queue to get in stretched around the corner and they were operating a 'one out, one in' door policy as there were so many people about - we eventually managed to get Phil the boss to come to the door who let us in and showed us to the basement where we could leave our gear until showtime. By now a large crowd had gathered in anticipation of Adam Ant's appearance, and he certainly didn't disappoint them. Performing as a duo with his guitarist he played 'Get It On', 'No Fun' and 'Shakin' All Over' to the raucous approval of all concerned, as well as several old Adam & The Ants songs ('Never Trust A Man With Egg On His Face' sounded particularly good to me) and they left the stage to rapturous applause. September Girls were up next, I saw a couple of songs before getting some food and meeting Segs at The Ship. From there we went to meet up with Dave at The Blue Posts where a green room was available for the bands; at 5.30 it was action stations with myself and Pablo retrieving our gear from Sister Ray, Nick making his way to the mixing desk and Segs, Dave and myself setting our gear up while DJ Andy Smith entertained the crowd with the help of some very good rock 'n' roll dancers on the front of the stage. As our 6pm stage time approached I looked out at the crowd - there were people everywhere. This was going to be brilliant. In my romantic (ok, over-romantic) way I mused on the area - The Marquee Club used to be just around the corner in Wardour Street, where everyone from Jimi Hendrix to The Who, Led Zeppelin to The Sex Pistols and indeed The Ruts played. They would all have walked along here, drank in The Ship and The Blue Posts - this was indeed going to be brilliant. And, my friends, I'm pleased to say that was indeed just that - brilliant. With Molara away elsewhere we'd mused long and loud on which songs would work best played as a three-piece but as we kicked off with 'Whatever We Do' I don't mind admitting that I had a moment of doubt - had we got it right? Thirty-odd minutes later and with deafening applause ringing in our ears we know - knew! - that we had. It was a great show, a real pleasure to play from start to finish. To use the same line that I used earlier, it's great when that happens... afterwards there are hands to shake, records for Dave and Segs to sign, photos to be in and more smiling faces that I can remember seeing for a very long time. We even signed a ten pound note for one person - strange but true. Great stuff!
After we'd but our gear back in the Sister Ray basement we all went to The Green Man for a drink or two - but the clock was ticking as we were due to go to The Hammersmith Odeon (or Apollo or whatever the hell it's called these days!) to see Adam And The Ants. Dave and co. left early, I hung on a while drinking and chatting - when I arrived at the venue the queue to get in seemed to go on forever. Surely they won't get everybody in before 9 o'clock? And sure enough they didn't - I walked through into the packed stalls just as 'Car Trouble' started and there were still a lot of very disgruntled people outside who would miss much of the 'Dirk Wears White Sox' section of the show. I thought the band sounded good (once again 'Never Trust A Man With Egg On His Face' was something of a highlight - I must really like that song!) and the old punks around me seemed to agree. As the feel of the show changed and they moved onto the later poppier material the old punks began finding their way out to the foyer bar rather than watching the show - and that of course included me or else I wouldn't know just how full the bar had become... still the closing number 'You're So Physical' sounded brilliant to my ears, and I have to say that Mr. Ant is a great performer - people are rarely as successful as he's been by accident are they?

And the weekend didn't end there for your humble narrator - after listening to Liverpool beat Norwich on the radio (yes, I'm that old!) I journeyed back up to The West End where in contrast to the sunshine of the previous day it was pouring with rain. I trudged down Berwick Street to Sister Ray - it couldn't have looked more different to how it looked the last time I was there. What a difference a day makes eh? I collected my guitar and effect pedals and walked the short distance to The 100 Club where Back To Zero were appearing at The Groovy Easter Eggtravaganza with The Sha La La's, Chris Pope and The Legendary Groovymen. I arrived to find the front doors locked - a call to Andy the drummer revealed that we had to get in through the backdoor in Berners Place. I arrived just in time to hear the last minute or so of The LGM's soundcheck 'You Need Wheels' - as I said hello to the rest of the band I realised that I was absolutely soaked. Bah! Still we set up and soundchecked in no time, after which Johnny Squirrel and myself walked down to Eat to, er, eat (!) before returning to the venue 15 minutes early for our half past six stage time. I'd not had chance to rehearse with the band (they'd got together without me on Wednesday evening) so I'd revised the material on my own, and despite the odd wrong turning I got through our set reasonably unscathed. Once again, it's good when that happens... and all the other bands played well too, making it a good night all round - but I'm feeling tired today. Maybe I really do need a day off? Happy Easter indeed.

Arguments For Socialism

'The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person - Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler - one can ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.'

  - Tony Benn, during his final speech to The House Of Commons, 22nd March 2001 

Tony Benn died on Friday. For what my opinion is worth I think that he was a remarkable man, and that The World is a lesser place for his passing. I met him a few times - you can read the story of one such encounter here if you like - and on every occasion he seemed to me to be an absolute gentleman, which considering that he spent much of his life among professional politicians counts as a real achievement if you think about it. In the last few days it's been interesting to hear the odious, self-serving creeps that currently inhabit our government attempting to say something vaguely nice about a man that they so obviously hated for his honesty and conviction, two qualities that they themselves wouldn't know if their miserable, corrupt little lives depended upon it. It's easy to criticise Benn for being an idealist, or for being unrealistic about how his ideas would translate into the 'real' World, but I think that misses the point - here was a man who was unafraid to state his beliefs and stand by them, which is perhaps something that many in Westminster won't do or indeed can't understand. Strange isn't it? You might have thought that they'd realise that honesty and integrity are actually qualities worth having, rather than saying anything that they think might make them more attractive to us long-suffering members of the general public regardless of whether they believe it or not, all for a fear of making themselves unelectable or because they are obliged to tow the party line. As we sink further and further into coalition - orchestrated oblivion we need men like Tony Benn (and indeed Bob Crow) more than ever - but where are they going to come from? Now there's a question...

And if that's not bad enough, Scott Asheton has died. Also known as Rock Action (that's got to be the best rock 'n' roll name ever hasn't it?!?) he was a founder member of The Stooges, and is so by definition one of the most influential drummers of all time. His work on 'The Stooges', 'Fun House' and 'Raw Power' helped to inspire countless punk players, and when the band reformed in 2003 he and his late brother Ron finally received the recognition (and indeed financial reward) that they so richly deserved. Iggy Pop's comment that 'I've never heard anyone play the drums with more meaning than Scott Asheton' says it all - a very sad loss.

In the meantime Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Halfway House in Rickmansworth on Friday evening. With Dave busy elsewhere Mac Poole depped on drums - since we were all there early it was great to have chance to talk to Mac about some of his illustrious past, and I must admit that I could have listened to his stories of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and The Move (among many others) for hours. But we had a gig to play, and a good gig it was too, with more dates being offered at the end of the evening and a positive reaction all round.

The next night The Upper Cut returned to The Load Of Hay in Uxbridge for the first time in quite a while. Sad to say the place seems to have gone downhill since I used to book Sunday night acoustic gigs there a few years ago, to such an extent that they ran out of lager and indeed quite a few other beers during the course of the evening. Strange - you realise that a pub without beer is, well, not very much at all really... as a result several people went home in disgust and others expressed their general annoyance to all and sundry - I must admit I was more concerned when my amplifier blew a fuse when I first turned it on, although it thankfully worked fine for the rest of the evening. An odd night.

And yesterday was of course St. Patrick's Day - it was also time for another Reggae Punk Monday at The 12 Bar Club. Heroically resisting the temptation to order a gallon of Guinness I thoroughly enjoyed Dave Kusworth's brand of low-slung-guitar-powered rock'n'roll but had to leave for the last train home before The Duel played. Oh well - there's always next Monday... hopefully...

Train in vain

Well with the Damned / Ruts D.C. tour approaching there seems to be more and more things to do and less and less opportunities for blogging - so it's just a short missive this time :-

Friday night saw Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks visit The Crown in Cowley. The band had played there while I was away with Ruts D.C. earlier this year - Pete was on guitar then (and he was with the band again the next night at The Paddington Packet Boat which peculiarly is only a few hundred yards down the road from this venue) and he joined us for a few songs at this show, which took a while to get going but developed into a highly enjoyable gig. With Dave away elsewhere Mac Poole did a fine job depping on drums, and the band must have done something right as we were offered four more gigs next year. We're playing there on Christmas Eve too - excellent.

Back to Zero played their first gig since August on Saturday, at The Railway Hotel in Southend. Now I for one had been looking forward to this for quite some time, and while I won't go so far as to say that it was a let down it wasn't quite as enjoyable as it might have been. Maybe I'd been looking forward to it a bit too much, if you know what I mean? When we arrived Daddy Long Legs were roaring through a splendid set of supercharged garage-y blues in front of a fair-sized audience for a Saturday afternoon; things were obviously overrunning a bit as they were still playing as our stage time of half past four came and went, but no one seemed to be too concerned. We were due to play two sets, the first consisting of covers and the second of original songs - the first set was a bit of a struggle but the second really came together, to the extent that we could have done an encore - but suddenly time was tight with The 45s due on at 7.45. Shame - I was really enjoying our show. They played well, very tight and slick - but am I the only person that thinks that covering songs like 'I'm A Man' and 'In The Midnight Hour' can be a risky business? Whilst they sound good in themselves they can sometimes serve to show that the band's own songs are somewhat lacking can't they?

And last night I joined the afore-mentioned Big Al and Pete at The Three Wishes in Edgware for the regular Monday jam night. With Andy from the house band on bass and Howard on drums we played 'Born To Run' and 'Peter Gunn' with Al blowing up a storm (literally!) on saxophone and the audience reacting as if we were the headline band - let's hope they're all there on Friday when the band will be playing our full show there... 

Purple patches, purple prose, purple passages...

Well as you might well imagine the news that Ruts D.C. were to support Wilko Johnson at Koko this coming Monday created something of a stir in my little world. The possibility first arose while we were out in Germany last month, and there have been more than a few 'will we? / won't we?' moments over the interim period until the show was finally confirmed. Under normal circumstances this would be easily the most exciting musical event in this posting - it's still probably the winner in that particular chart but last Friday's Upper Cut gig at The Dolphin in Uxbridge runs it surprisingly close...

One of my favourite pre-punk bands were (and indeed still are) the mighty Deep Purple, whose 'Made In Japan' live double album received many-a spin on my record player back in the day. Upper Cut drummer Roger was a roadie for the band in the 1970s, and as we were on our way to the gig he said that 'Roger' might be coming to the show. Ah - that'll be Roger Glover then. Oo-er... well not only did he come to our gig but he also joined Roger, Terry and myself to play 'Rock Me Baby' and 'Goin' Down' to the incredulity of much of the audience and, if I'm honest, me. It was really him, the bloke out of Deep Purple, playing with us. Amazing. And maybe most importantly he was a really nice chap, without a hint of the sort of arrogance or pretension that I've so often had to listen to over the years from ain't-never-been local musicians who bang on about themselves endlessly and never even ask how you are let alone how your music is going. I'll stop now before I start ranting... but in a celebrity-packed evening we also had ex - Keith Moon chauffeur Peter 'Dougal' Butler, Ali McKenzie of The Birds and the guru of the practice drum kit Bill Sanders in the audience. Strange but true, and definitely a night to remember.

On Thursday Ruts D.C. found themselves back at The Music Complex in Deptford for the first time in a while - with the Koko gig coming up we decided to get together to run through some new song ideas and to work out a set for Monday's show. We spent the first half of the session working a potential new song ides based on a riff from Segs and then floundered for a while as we attempted to put a 40 minute support show together; after stopping for coffee we returned to put a set together in no time and then played through it from start to finish with no breaks and no mistakes. Isn't caffeine amazing?!? Unfortunately during the session I discovered a crack in the back of the headstock on my Les Paul - I guess it received a knock at some point during the previous few days or weeks? Either way I dropped it off to Stuart the guitar repair man on the way back from the rehearsal, and he's just bought it round to me looking (almost) as good as new. Top man!

Friday night Big Al Reed and the Blistering Buicks returned to The Three Mariners in Bagshot. As I picked my guitar up to start the first set it felt like ages since I'd last played with the band although it was actually only at the start of September - mind you a lot has happened since then... my good friend Pete Kerr has been depping for me in the meantime and doing a fine job by all accounts - he played with us on Friday, which was fortuitous from my point of view as I felt as though I'd forgotten most of the set! Mac Poole kept it all together depping for Dave on drums, and the show went sufficiently well for us to be offered two more gigs including next Christmas Eve (!) so perhaps I didn't play too badly after all?

Right - I'm off to Camden Town to see tonight's Wilko gig. We're playing with him tomorrow night you know...

Surprise surprise

I was correct with my 'no gigs this week' assumption until Wednesday morning when I got a text message from Upper Cut singer Terry asking if I was free on Friday as there was a chance of a gig for us. Heroically resisting sending back 'I'm not free but I'm cheap' (sorry!) I instead sent a 'yes-where's-the-gig?' reply and awaited further instructions. After a short period of time (presumably while Terry waited to hear from Terry the bass and Roger the drums, then got back to the agency who was booking the gig) I got the 'it's on' message along with the news that it was a return visit to After Office Hours in Barnet. This was a bit of a surprise since we only played there last month, and since it wasn't exactly our greatest ever performance (we were too loud and there wasn't much of an audience) I for one wondered if we'd get another show there - still with everyone available it was perhaps a chance to make amends for last time. Then, on Friday morning I got another text message from Terry to say that there had been a mistake and the gig was actually at Sweeney's in Ruislip. Well, at least we found out before we all went to the wrong venue...

Upon arriving at Sweeney's I remembered that the only other show that we'd played at the venue (also a short notice event) had not been particularly enjoyable - the audience didn't take much notice of us and there was a fight in the interval. This time the audience didn't take much notice of us (or so we thought at the time) and there was a fight after the show (nice variation on a theme don't you think?) Still it was good to see Stuart the guitar repairman and Pete from Awaken, both of whom left after the first set (we played 2 sets, the first from 10 - 11 p.m. and the second from 11.30 p.m. - 12.45 a.m.) saying that it was nowhere near as bad as we were thinking that it was. It turned out that they were probably correct as we were asked for contact details by 3 different groups of people who were interested in booking us for private parties so maybe we were all being a bit negative? But it felt like hard work, not least when a young man stumbled up onto the stage saying that he'd just split up with his girlfriend, and she'd turned up there tonight, and could we play 'that Bryan Adams song, you know the one, the one that goes ''der-der-der-der-der-dum'', it'll be the only thing that might win her back'... and some lads asked for Oasis, and some more wanted something by The Kings Of Leon, and there was another request for some Bob Dylan, and, and, and...

We didn't play any of them.

Still in a burst of 'let's-go-out-and-get-ourselves-some-gigs-at-places-that-we'd-like-to-play-at' enthusiasm myself and Terry the bass spent yesterday evening visiting 2 venues that had been recommended to us by friends in bands. First stop was The Sportsman in Croxley Green to catch the first set by Awaken - with Ken and Russ busy elsewhere Dave is depping on bass with the legend that is Mac Poole is on drums. There's a million things that could be said about Mac who was in Warhorse among many others - put his name into Google and be amazed! They sounded good and were going down very well when we left - I'd like to think that my guest spot on 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Play That Funky Music' (yeah, those 2 songs again; Pete very kindly bought a longer guitar strap along for me to use - I'll bring an even longer one along next time!) at the start of their second set contributed to the positive reaction although I think they were doing fine without me. From my point of view it was the only time I've ever faced an audience wearing a jumper (I forgot to take it off!) which didn't seem to hamper my playing too much - I might have to try it again!

From there it was off to The Kings Arms in Harefield to see the second set from Midnight, a West Drayton - based soul band who have been going in one form or another since the 1980s. They feature a 5 piece horn section (alto, tenor and baritone saxes with trumpet and trombone) and include Big Al Read on vocals and alto sax (not at the same time obviously!) Al's an old mate of Terry's who's got up and sang with The Upper Cut a couple of times; I don't think he wasn't in the band when I last saw them - mind you that was about 20 years ago! Their set was enthusiastically received by the assembled multitude, and rightly so as they sounded excellent. And I'm not just saying that because Al got us a gig there, honest!

I've got 2 gigs this week. At the moment.