'I'm back - in full attack...'

Friday 30th December at 4 pm, in seat 15D on British Airways flight number BA542 not long after take-off.

Well it's been a while since I've done this. Blogging I mean. I think that I've, for want of a better term, lost the habit. Time I got it back then.

Somewhere near the end of October - or was it the start of November? - my computer went wrong. I switched it on one night - to write a blog post if I remember correctly - and the screen remained defiantly white, albeit with a little question mark in the middle. A quick scout around the Internet (we've all got that on our phone these days haven't we? It's funny how you go to use it almost with out thinking isn't it?) revealed that it was likely to be a hard drive problem - so what was I to do? Hmm... I wonder if that computer repair shop down the road could sort it out for me?
Well it turned out that they could. Eventually. My new friend Terry phoned me after he'd had a look at it to tell that I did indeed need a new hard drive ('you have backed it up haven't you?' he asked somewhat ominously and clearly expecting the answer 'no' - yes, incredibly I had, and fairly recently too) and went on to tell me that being an 'old' (i.e. not 'new') MacBook there were limits to what could be achieved. 'How about a hybrid drive?' said he, rather more cheerily than he'd asked the previous question; he'd usually suggest a solid state drive but my ancient device wouldn't be able to cope with that but this would do the trick. Well it sounded like a good plan and was a lot less expensive than I was fearing so I gave him the go-ahead. 'No hurry' I replied when he asked when I needed the computer back. This may in retrospect have been a bit of a mistake.
After a week or so I called to see how things were going. My new mate Terry was still very much my new mate, and he lost little if any time in telling me that things were going well and that he should be able to have my computer back with me by, ooh, the end of next week. 'Oh that great' said I - it was only after I'd put the phone down that I realised that it would by then be over three weeks since I'd had the computer at home. I had several outstanding invoices to send (if you're a self-employed person like me then you'll know what I mean!) and had among other things an increasingly dim recollection of writing something called a 'blog'. I used to enjoy writing that, even if I was never really sure if anyone actually read it. I'd been able to update my Facebook page on my iPhone but writing anything more than a few words was just too fiddly. A snap decision saw your humble narrator purchase an iPad Mini as there were bills to pay online - it's amazing how much of that we all do online these days isn't it? - and anyway, I'd fancied an iPad for a while as it'd be handy for taking away on tour. I'm finding it less fiddly to use than a phone but trickier than a computer - oh well, I'm sure it'll be ok in the end.
In the meantime my afore-mentioned computer reappeared at the afore-mentioned shop. Hurrah! I rather nervously switched it on - it worked. Good! But wait a minute - something was different. Well, actually quite a lot was different. It was... well, it was like I remember it being when I first got it all those years ago. It's not how I remember it before it went wrong. Bugger! Oh hang on - I guess that means that I have to, I believe the term is, 'restore my last back up' from the external hard drive that I've got all this stuff sitting on. Well that should be simple enough shouldn't it? Well indeed it should, but after what felt like an age on the Internet I still could get the bloomin' thing to work. Terry - help!
'You probably need some iCloud settings updating, and maybe a few other bits and pieces looking at - drop it back into the shop and I'll sort it out for you' said my by-now-old mate Terry. Will do. Could I have it back a bit quicker than last time please?
Well it finally made it's way back to me just before Christmas and I'm pleased / relieved to say that it seems to working fine. Having spent years being clogged up to breaking point with far too much music in iTunes it's now less than half full - plenty of room for yet more music then - and it's good to have it back working at something faster than the proverbial snail's pace. I must still keep using the iPad though mustn't I? All's well that end's well - except that I tried to back it up last night (I thought that I'd better have a go!) and it wouldn't work. I'd better look up 'Time Machine Settings' or something like it when we get back hadn't I?

And it's been a while since I've done this too. Flown to a gig I mean. Ruts D.C. have a New Year's Eve gig at The Covo Club in Bologna. I think that the last time that I saw the original band was New Year's Eve 1981 at The Fulham Greyhound. That's 35 years ago. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Doesn't time fly anyway?
Since last we spoke here I've been gigging a fair bit, mostly with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks as well as a Boxing Night bash at The Dolphin in Uxbridge with The Upper Cut which all but erased the memory of our last not-so-good gig there. I've also worked many-a day at Balcony Shirts which has maybe not been quite as busy as at the same time last year, and spent most of Christmas Day ill with food poisoning or something like it. Urgh! I've managed to have a couple of much-needed quiet days after Xmas before before Segs, Dave and myself got together yesterday for rehearsal - buoyed by the recent news that 'Music Must Destroy' was voted Album Of The Year in Vive Le Rock magazine ('I'd like to thank the academy' etc) we spent four very enjoyable hours running through material for tomorrow night's show. 
A lot of people don't seem to be sad to see the back of 2016. There do seem to have been rather a lot of celebrity deaths don't there? Incidentally I was very saddened to hear that Rick Parfitt left the building just before Christmas - one of the great rock 'n' roll rhythm guitarists, I met him once and he seemed to be a very nice chap. And I was never exactly the world's biggest George Michael fan, but you can't deny that the guy could certainly sing... and then there was that little matter of the vote to leave The E.U. (am I the only person that thinks that we won't actually leave?) and the truly astonishing sight of someone who appears to be a complete and utter lunatic being voted President Elect of The U.S.A.; it remains to be seen how we fare in 2017 but surely it can't be quite as crazy as 2016?

Anyway the screen says that we're 51 minutes away from Bologna and I've got 'The Liberal Politics Of Adolf Hitler' by John King to read. That's quite a title isn't it? I'm told by the author that the band are in it somewhere (that wasn't the only reason that I bought it, honest!) so I'd better get on with reading it hadn't I? 

Saturday 31st December at 11.24 am, in Room 354 of The Ramada Encore Hotel in Bologna

Ah, that's better. I sometimes wonder if there's anything in the World that a hot shower or indeed a hot bath won't fix. Not that I had anything in particular that needed fixing, but you know what I mean I think.
It's a lovely sunny morning here, so perhaps I should be out and about rather than languishing in a hotel room. Fair point - but since we have a very long day in prospect (we're due on stage at 12.30 am) a lazy morning might be a good idea.

I bet you thought that
I'd made those names up?!?

'Twas a splendid evening just gone - we were met at the airport by Mars and Angela (I first met Mars several years ago when as a member of The Valentines he was backing T.V. Smith on some British dates) who took us to our hotel for check-in then to The Jukebox Cafe for some food. The Cafe (which incidentally serves such delights as Punkcakes, Eggy Pop and, believe it or not, a Ruts Burger - if you're in Bologna then visit immediately!) is part of The Covo Club - with no table available for a while it was suggested that we had a walk around town which turned out to be an excellent idea. Whilst musicians are lucky enough to find themselves in all sorts of interesting places there's often very little time to see anything other than where you're playing and where you're staying so it was great to be able to see some of the local sights. Mars recalled seeing The Clash play an open air show in the Town Square in 1980 - Topper was late so they played the first few songs with the drummer from the support band Whirlwind on drums before giving a blistering performance. 'It changed my life' said he, looking visibly moved. I bet that it did. They changed mine too.
Outside the cafe a board advertises the (very) imminent appearance of 'U.K. Punk Legends' Ruts D.C.; the jukebox is blasting out early Stones singles and the food is going down very well as is the local beer and wine. We all pretty much ran out of steam around midnight - it had been a long day. A taxi was called but few if any other attendees were leaving - The Jukebox Cafe looks like a good place to be.
Meanwhile I've got Creedence Clearwater Revival playing on the iPod (Keith Richards earlier, it's funny how some songs come to mind when you least expect it isn't it?) and I've got a bit of time to myself, which is good because J.K.'s book is every bit as good as I was hoping that it would be. It's all go isn't it? Well, it certainly will be later.

Sunday 1st January at 2.05 pm, in the hotel lobby

Ah - the wonder of the late check out. Mars spoke to the person behind the desk yesterday who apparently is a regular at the club. That was lucky.
We got back to the hotel not long after 5 am. It had been a long night, but a good one. Opening act Mars Valentines and The Illuminations had warmed the crown up with a set of suitably punky cover versions ('This Perfect Day' sounded particularly strong I thought) and had all looked as though they were having a whale of a time. They went on not long before midnight, and stopped after a couple of songs to open a bottle of champagne (or something very like it) and to toast the start of 2017. And why not? It was Mars's first stage appearance for over two years, and he made a great job of it. And let's face it, anybody who plays a Gibson Firebird has to be alright don't they?
When we were first offered the gig (not that long ago, around October if I remember rightly) I must admit that I for one was a little bemused. Are Ruts D.C. a 'New Year's Eve type of band'? I suppose the answer to that question is something along the lines of 'it depends on where you are on New Year's Eve'. They were certainly the right type of band for The Fulham Greyhound on NYE 1981, and it turned out that we were the right type of band for The Covo Club on NYE 2017. As previously discussed we'd not played a show since November, and while there was no reason that this show shouldn't have been a good one (after all we'd sounded fine in rehearsal) there is often an element of 'ring rustiness' in situations such as these. Thankfully that wasn't the case here, and our 18-song-set-with-a-4-song-encore roared by in no time - always a sign of a good show. Afterwards there was time for a drink (or two) and a chance to talk to some of the audience, many of whom were very emotional about our performance. It's easy to forget how powerful music can be - how it brings like-minded people together, how it can stir up often unexpected emotions and feelings, and how it can mean so much to players and listeners alike. This was definitely one of those nights, a pleasure to part of from start to finish. I often bang on about how lucky I am to be able to play music - I'm not going to do that again here (for once!) but suffice to say that it's good to be reminded of it sometimes... 

Monday 2nd January at 12.26 pm, back in Blighty and at home

So there you have it - a return to blogging after what feels like ages. It's actually only a few weeks, but having written something most weeks for the last 10 (10!) years it's something that's a bigger part of my life than I perhaps realise. I started it to learn to type and to find my way around a computer - despite still being a 'two finger typist' most of the time (thumbs and the odd second finger creep in here and there) I can now get up a reasonable head of steam, and whilst I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as being 'computer literate' I can do more on a computer than I ever could, especially when the damn thing works... I'm still not really sure that anybody reads this stuff, but I'm in too deep to stop now. So I'd better carry on then! Forward!

Oh and I nearly forgot - happy new year y'all!
(Assuming that anybody is reading this…)

'Normal service has resumed...' - or has it?

So - how much do you think that you use a computer?

How much do you think that you need a computer?

Until the events of the past few weeks I probably would have answered along the lines of 'well, not that much really' and 'not at all, after all we did ok before they were invented didn't we?'

Oh dearie dearie me...

It turns out that - rather like most of us I suspect - I use a computer a lot more than I thought that I did. A hell of a lot more than I though that I did. Not all day every day (honest!) but there's always something to do isn't there? Do you order things from places like Amazon? I do. You do as well? That's tricky without a computer, or at the very least one of those new-fangled smartphones. But you kinda need a computer if you've got one of those don't you, for syncing (now there's a word that none of us used until comparatively recently) and all that other stuff... and do you pay your household bills online? Your car insurance? All those other bills and things that we pay for almost without realising it because you're not actually handing over money and therefore it doesn't feel as though you're actually spending anything? Yep, me too. So does that mean that I, or indeed you, 'need' a computer? Can we (gulp!) really not live without one?

Well let's put it this way - I'm typing this somewhat hesitantly on an iPad that I've rather wildly just bought myself as my ageing MacBook has had to go back to the menders after not quite doing what it's supposed to do... after years of being permanently bunged up with several days worth of noisy rock 'n' roll music the hard drive finally gave up the ghost at the start of November - I took it to my friendly neighbourhood computer repair people who have fitted a new hard drive and restored it to it's former glory. And that, as they say, was that. Except of course, it wasn't. Things are never quite that simple are they? Attempts by your humble narrator to 'restore the last backup' (the things that you hear yourself say these days eh?) have sadly proved fruitless so I've had to get a grown-up - or indeed, a young person - to help me. I feel like Fred Flintstone sometimes. 'Twas ever thus. 

In the meantime I've realised that I do indeed 'need' a computer (or at least something very like one) these days, hence the appearance of the iPad. It's been an interesting 3-or-so weeks - I've gigged with Ruts D.C., T.V. Smith, Department S, Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks and more, shared stages with the likes of The Damned, The Vapors and Eddie And The Hot Rods, worked a fair bit in Balcony Shirts, seen the David Bowie musical 'Lazarus', held a python and a tarantula in a haunted pub in Devon (oh yes!) and probably lots more besides (there's been updates etc on my Facebook page which you can see here if you're interested in such things) but somehow it's all taken place to a backdrop of me thinking things like 'I wonder if they've fixed my computer yet?'. Strange but true. And I still haven't got the bloody thing back...

Deptford fun city

Behold the above photo of Room 2 at The Music Complex in Deptford. This is a very good rehearsal studio, which is just as well as I'm likely to be spending rather a lot of time there over the next few weeks. I took the picture early on Wednesday afternoon during a break in a Ruts D.C. rehearsal, when Dave, Segs, Seamus and myself (Molara was sadly unavailable) ran through most of the material played at last year's Alabama 3 support shows as well as several potential additions to the set. Their 1981 album 'Animal Now' is about to be re-issued, and there have been any number of requests for older Ruts songs so the song choices reflected this - I won't ruin it for you millions of fans that are reading this (I wish!) but suffice to say that you hopefully won't be disappointed if you catch one of the upcoming gigs. 
Talking of photos the excellent Stupefaction blog has posted these wonderful images of Ruts D.C. way back in the early 1980s. I remember them looking like that! That was over 30 years ago - amazing. And talking of blogging Adrian at Aural Sculptors has reviewed the 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' sampler CD - it's a very good review (I wouldn't have put a link to it if it wasn't!) as you can read here. Excellent!


I'd expected to be back in Deptford today for a Cool Britannia rehearsal in anticipation of our first show at The Lights Theatre in Andover tomorrow night, but late on Tuesday afternoon the news came that the show had been rescheduled to Wednesday 18th July. Much consternation (and a fair bit of swearing) among the band members followed, as well as speculation along the lines of 'if this has happened now how many other venues are going to do the same thing?' Not good frankly - let's see what happens next.


On a lighter note, The Upper Cut (and after probably far too much debate we've finally decided that it's two words - The Upper Cut rather than The Uppercut) now have their own website which you can see here - more egotism and shameless self publicity! It's been good fun to put together, and if nothing else doing this and my website have given me chance to get to grips with the iWeb facility on my MacBook. I suspect that like my iPhone and iPod I only use a small amount of the clever things that it can do, but have a look and see what you think. Hmm... I use a lot of those i-related thingies don't I? 


And I've just heard from my old Blue Five bandmate (should that be 'duo-mate' as there was only two of us? Answers on a postcard please, usual address) Pete a.k.a. Voltarol whose always-excellent blog has been very quiet of late. It seems that he's been putting his online energies into Facebook (weirdo! - although I guess I really should get myself on there sometime...) and has sent me the links to pages for two bands that he's currently involved with - Silvia Nicolatto and the Anglo Cornish Project and Que Belo Castelo. All good stuff, but I for one miss the Voltarol of old. Come on Pete - get back on the blog!


Right - with an unexpected day at home it's time to plug the guitar in and play. Yeah, I know I could do something sensible like tidy up, but Shirley's out at work and I've got songs to practice. Hope the neighbours aren't in...

The Eton Rifles

It was the 75th anniversary of the Battle Of Cable Street on Tuesday - given some of their more dubious links there's a peculiar irony about it taking place during the Conservative Party conference don't you think? I somehow doubt that there were any commemorative events being held at the conference... still I did see an item on the London News about it, and The Mirror had quite a big article on it so at least it wasn't completely bypassed by the media. Back in the late 1980s The Price did a few gigs for Cable Street Beat (perhaps best thought of as the musical arm of Anti-Fascist Action) at a time when it seemed that extreme right wing politics were everywhere; at a show at The Electric Ballroom in Camden Town (we weren't playing - I think it was The Men They Couldn't Hang among others?) I met Solly Kaye whose memories of the day itself really were extraordinary and whose speech from the stage redefined the word 'inspirational'. In the meantime the ever-excellent Daily Mash summed up the Tory gathering better than I ever will - many a true word spoken in jest, as they say...

In the meantime 2 great - make that great - guitarists have recently left the building -

I only saw Bert Jansch play once (at a blues festival in Oxford since you ask) but I'll never forget it. I'd heard his name a million times but had not really heard him play - as he hunched over his acoustic guitar playing finger-busting chords whilst singing with a chilling other-worldy voice I realised why the likes of Jimmy Page always name-checked him as one of the all time greats. Along with Davy Graham he defined acoustic guitar playing for many, and he'll be very sadly missed.

I never got to see Marv Tarplin play but I've certainly heard him. And so have you although you might not realise it - his work with Smokey Robinson And The Miracles mark him out as one of the great players and indeed songwriters of what for many was Motown's golden era. That's him on 'Tracks Of My Tears' and 'Going To A Go-Go' for instance, and if that's not proof of his brilliance then I for one don't know what is. Another sad loss.

And away from music Steve Jobs has died, although I'm sure that you're aware of that as it's been in the news rather more than the above two stories. As I sit here typing on my MacBook I feel that even I owe him something, although I'm not really sure what. I'll have a think about that and let you know if I come up with an answer!

The Chicago Blues Brothers returned to The Theatre Royal in Windsor this weekend for 3-shows-in-2-days - previous visits have been for longer which I guess is indicative of how quiet things are for the band these days compared to the last few years. Still they were 3 good shows with Friday evening probably just edging Saturday evening in the 'best of the bunch' stakes; the Saturday matinee (hey, that rhymes!) was a bit odd to say the least, with only a hundred or so people in the audience and although we still gave a good show it was difficult to 'get going', if you know what I mean. Ben was depping for Dave on trumpet on Saturday (it was the A-Team all round apart from that) and he did a wonderful job, particularly on 'Minnie The Moocher'. Around halfway through the second Saturday show Squirrel and myself both realised that the black dots that were appearing on the stage were sweat that was dripping from Matt - that man's energy never ceases to amaze. After Friday's show Mike, Matt and myself decided to go for a drink - sometime after 2 a.m. we left The Old Ticket Hall in a rather more confused state than the one we had arrived in. Maybe that's why we decided to walk though Eton to the Slough Travelodge where we were staying rather than get a cab? Maybe that's why the matinee show was a little odd? Maybe that's why the last section of this posting is somewhat disjointed?

Well, maybe.

See how I suffer for my art!

Well I thoroughly enjoyed my time on Music Scene Investigation, and I'm pleased to say that I will hopefully be appearing again later in the year. (Well, fairly obviously I won't be appearing again earlier in the year but you know what I mean.) Ian, Tom and Rich were all very helpful, I managed to work Skype correctly (and what an amazing thing that is!) and if you didn't catch it then click here to see me wearing unfeasibly large headphones and sounding almost as though I know what I'm talking about. Excellent!

And apologies for the Warhol-esque nonsense above; having had one of these MacBook thingys for Gawd knows how long I've only just worked out how to take pictures with it!

In the meantime that was my first weekend for a while without any gigs (bah!) and although I never think I'm particularly busy I've just had a look back through the last few months worth of postings and considering these dark days of recession and depression I've not had a bad run overall. I've spoken to quite a few musicians lately who have had nowhere near as much work so I'm not going to complain (for once!) Still it's got me thinking about the nature of what it is that I do...

For quite a few of the shows over the last few months I've been obliged to learn songs specifically for the performance, or to learn different arrangements of otherwise familiar material. This has been both good fun and not a little daunting - I'll say now that the Killers song 'Mr. Brightside' which we played at the York show back at the start of May is one of the most difficult songs I've encountered in ages. It might not sound too hard but the intro and verse chords feature some enormous stretches (have a look at this clip of them performing it and see you'll see what I mean) which have never been a strong point of mine. Their guitarist must have very big hands, or very long fingers, or both! I also learned a Michael Buble song for that show which was easier to play but had the added pressure of being the couple's first dance, with all the scrutiny that that entails. From my point of view this sort of thing normally means a fair bit of time listening to the original tracks, looking at You Tube clips and generally attempting to work out what's going on in the song. There are numerous guitar tablature sites on the Internet, many of which can be very useful and save quite a bit of time although their accuracy is sometimes questionable as anybody can post onto them.

At the other end of the scale there was the Upper Cut gig in Staines a couple of days earlier where we were billed as a Rod Stewart tribute band - faced with a number of requests (!) we busked a reasonable version of 'The First Cut Is The Deepest' which went down well with the Rod fans. Something like that depends on several factors - fairly obviously some songs are easier to play than others even if you all know the song well it can still catch you out; there's also things like how well you can all hear each other to take into consideration, as well as how good the band is in the first place. Then there's how good your ear is - can you anticipate a chord change correctly if you've never played it before? Most of us have good days and bad days at this so you can only hope that it's one of your good days when you need to do it!

And then there was 'The Servant' at last weekend's gig with T.V. Smith which I managed to make a mistake in before the vocals had even started - and we might never play it again so I can't make amends!

So what's the alternative to spending hours in front of a CD player or computer screen? Well for the jobbing rock guitarist there really isn't one. Horn players are invariably excellent sight readers with their parts written out for them - guitar and bass players rarely if ever have anything provided for them, and most of them don't sight read conventional music anyway. I suppose this gives rise to a vicious circle where players don't learn to read music as they're never given anything to read, but parts aren't provided because most players can't read them. A notable exception to this are West End theatre shows and the like, but that's another subject for another time (and let's face it, another guitarist!)

And then there's the question of sound. It's fairly obvious to even the most casual listener that the guitars on a heavy metal recording sound a lot different to those on a funk tune. Playing the correct notes is only part of the story, you've got to sound right as well. Leaving aside the fact that this could be seen as spurious justification for owning a large number of guitars, amplifiers and effect pedals (perish the thought!) there's actually a serious point here - I agonised over which guitar to play at the afore-mentioned York show for quite some time, eventually choosing my SG as it was the easiest guitar to play the scary 'Mr Brightside' chords on. I nearly went for a Stratocaster (I needed a guitar with a double cutaway so that I could play chord high up the neck; there wasn't much in it to be honest) but I think I chose correctly in the end. This might seem like nitpicking but it's something that I find is spending a bit of time thinking about and indeed trying different instruments - the right guitar can make the gig, the wrong one can literally break it.

With regards to effect pedals, I've never owned a great number of these as I like to try to keep things as simple as possible, and the ones that I do have are fairly traditional types like booster pedals (to make solos louder), distortion, chorus, echo etc. I was talking to a guitarist recently who had a huge array of processors on a custom built pedal board because, as he put it, 'I might need play "Livin' On A Prayer" one minute and then "Mustang Sally" the next'. Hmm... I've had to do that sort of thing too but I've still only got a pedal or two wired up at any one time. This is not to say that I'm right and he's wrong (far from it - he's a lot more successful than I am!) but it does indicate a different approach to the same situation. As I say there's no right or wrong here - I just prefer to get different sounds out of the guitar and amplifier. With that in mind I'm starting to realise that I could do with a more versatile amp to go with my Fender combo which are great for clean sounds but not quite so effective on rockier material. Then again I could just get myself a decent overdrive pedal... actually haven't I got one of those somewhere?

Anyway I can't sit here typing, I've got work to do - I'm depping in The Duplicates at the end of the month and have nearly 2 hours of material to learn. The circle is unbroken... better get on with it then!