My last gig of last year saw your humble narrator depping with Mr. Tibbs at The Greyhound in Chalfont St. Peter. When I first got offered the gig Martin the singer said that I'd be 'standing in for Tony', which I didn't think too much about - until a perspective setlist arrived by email and it dawned on me that in addition to playing guitar Tony also plays keyboards on quite a few numbers, which of course meant that I'd have to play something that at least approximated to the keyboard rather than the guitar part on those songs. Confused? So was I! Add the fact that it being New Year's Eve we were playing something like 40 songs over three sets and I suddenly found myself with rather more work than I might at first have thought. Still it's better than sitting at home wishing that I had a gig... in the event it turned out to be a highly enjoyable affair - singer Martin and drummer Bruce used to be in The Cane Toads, and with that band's guitarists Pete and Malcolm both attending the atmosphere was good from the word go. Chris the bass player made a very good job of some very tricky material ('Rio' anyone?) and new-ish guitarist Stuart played very well throughout. Me? I'd be lying if I said that I didn't put a foot wrong all night (there were a lot of songs, some of whom I was very unfamiliar with - well, that's my excuse anyway!) but overall I was pleased with my efforts, and it was certainly interesting trying to get some of the keyboard parts onto guitar. Audience-wise we began with studied indifference and the ill-advisedly-clad young ladies (surely they must be freezing?!?) asking for Amy Winehouse songs ('do we look like we can play any?' said Martin derisively) with sweary young chaps attempting to impress them by dancing wildly though not particularly well; we ended with a full dance floor, a girl asking if she could do a 'new year rap' (Martin let her do it, none of us could understand a word that she said) and proclamations that we were the best band ever. New Year's Eve eh?
I spent the first evening of 2014 with Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes at The 12 Bar Club in London. We arrived just in time to miss Black Juju - a shame since we both agreed that any band named after an Alice Cooper song would be well worth checking out - but were there in time to see The Transients, who I really enjoyed (let's face it, anybody that plays 'The Good's Gone' and 'See No Evil' has to have something going for them haven't they?) although I missed a fair bit of their set as I received a phone call from Segs telling me that he was due to be playing guitar at Ronnie Biggs's funeral on Friday. Weird! While I was talking to him Esso ran into rock photographer Paul Slattery who he last met back in the late-70s when Paul accompanied The Lurkers on a tour of Ireland - much jollity ensued with some very funny stories of those dim and distant times. Excellent. By now Special Branch were on playing Dr. Feelgood songs a-plenty among the older rhythm and blues classics. Hmmm... don't I play in a band like that?
On to the main event - The Fallen Leaves. I saw a few songs by them at the same venue several months ago and had been looking to catch a full gig since then; they feature original Subway Sect guitarist Rob Symmons and later Subway Sect singer Rob Green who has a fine line in onstage comments ('we play simple songs for complex people') as well as namechecking Leonard Sachs in 'The Good Old Days' and pouring himself a cup of tea from a thermos flask during guitar solos. I suppose they're best described as a garage band, but whatever label you choose to use I thought they sounded great, with loads of energy and the Symmons guitar sounding like the musical equivalent of a scythe. Great stuff all round.
Last night I made my first visit to Tropic At Ruislip for quite a while, to see Who tribute band Who's Who. It's easy to be cynical about tribute bands (and I sometimes am!) but arriving to find the venue nearly sold out can only be a good thing can't it? I've regularly referred to my enthusiasm for The Who on many occasions in these hallowed pages, and as such I find myself sometimes being over-critical of any Who tribute band - however in the case of Who's Who I can only say that they make a difficult job sound easy, and as with pretty much every other time that I've seen them play they sounded absolutely tremendous. But like I say, they usually do.
And tomorrow night I make my first appearance of the year on Music Scene Investigation, reviewing three songs that have been sent in for consideration by new artists. It's always an interesting show, so if you're anywhere near the Internet at 9pm then why not tune in? It'll be good to have you along.
So - 2014 then. Let's see what happens next...
Showing posts with label Mr. Tibbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mr. Tibbs. Show all posts
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Monday, December 30, 2013
The end of the pier show
Well considering that it's the holiday season I've had a busy few days. I prefer that to having nothing to do though - don't you?
When last we spoke I was just about to leave for a Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks show at The Crown in Cowley. Gigs at this time of the year are always a bit of a lottery - they can go really well or be something of an anti-climax. (Some might say that the same situation applies to Christmas!) This one was definitely more of the former than the latter although from my point of view it was somewhat coloured by the fact that I'd been for an end-of-year-drink at The Queen's Head in Uxbridge with the Balcony Shirts team. I only had a couple of beers (honest!) but it seemed to hit me harder than it might (drinking during the day can be a bit perilous can't it?!) and I felt that I didn't play very well as a result - mind you no one else seemed to think that there was a problem so perhaps I was worrying over nothing? (Again!) We certainly went down well which I guess is the main thing.
I spent much of Christmas Day in the company of Wilko Johnson, Norman Watt-Roy and Dylan Howe - I'd bought myself the recently-released 'Live At Koko' DVD for Christmas and had saved it to watch on the day, and I must say that it was well worth waiting for. A live DVD of the great man has long been overdue, and this is an absolutely superb release that captures the band in all their not-inconsiderable glory. Brilliantly filmed and well recorded, it's a fitting tribute to the mighty Mr. Johnson and his band.
The Upper Cut have played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge many times, including the last two Boxing Day evenings; I was a bit surprised when Noel the guv'nor asked us to play again this year as I thought he might have wanted a different band this year but I'm pleased that he did as it turned out to be a very memorable evening. Back in the 1990s Roger (drums) Terry (bass) and myself had a rhythm and blues band called The Informers with singer Bryan Byford - the band dissolved when he and his wife Judy moved to Ireland and none of us had seen them for around 15 years, so it was a great surprise when they turned up at the gig. Bryan joined us for 'Shaking All Over' and 'Baby Please Don't Go' and sounded in fine voice as did Big Al Reed who sang 'Hoochie Coochie Man' with our singer Terry on harmonica; we were a little shaky to begin with (we'd not played live for a couple of months) but all pulled together after a couple of numbers and our show ended with much dancing and merriment all round.
The next day (Friday I think - am I the only person who loses track of what day it is at this time of year?) saw Utter Madness play The Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mere. When we arrived the tide was out, and there was definitely something rather bizarre about driving along the pier in the dark with no water either side of us. The venue itself was rather bizarre too, with a stage and PA system set up among the fairground amusements. Very strange. With it being a blustery and rainy evening we all wondered if there'd be anyone at the show, but over 200 people turned up. Excellent! Our two 45 minute sets of Madness and ska classics got the general approval of all concerned, although our surrogate Suggs Tony thought he heard someone shout 'you're the worst Madness tribute band ever' at one point. I didn't hear it myself so am going to say that he was mistaken... and anyway, we were good!
And yesterday Big Al and the band played a 5pm show at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook. There have been no gigs there for a few months as it's been undergoing a refit, and I must say that they've made a very good job of it. We made a very good job of our show too, playing 3 sets and then being offered more money to play for longer. Oo-er! A good 'last-gig-of-the-year' for the band, and with shows already booked into the middle of next year it's looking good for The Blistering Buicks.
Ok - I've got to spend the rest of today going through the songs for tomorrow's New Year's Eve gig with Mr. Tibbs at The Greyhound in Chalfont St. Peter. I did some work on them on Saturday, and there are the best part of 40 songs to be played - better get on with it then...
When last we spoke I was just about to leave for a Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks show at The Crown in Cowley. Gigs at this time of the year are always a bit of a lottery - they can go really well or be something of an anti-climax. (Some might say that the same situation applies to Christmas!) This one was definitely more of the former than the latter although from my point of view it was somewhat coloured by the fact that I'd been for an end-of-year-drink at The Queen's Head in Uxbridge with the Balcony Shirts team. I only had a couple of beers (honest!) but it seemed to hit me harder than it might (drinking during the day can be a bit perilous can't it?!) and I felt that I didn't play very well as a result - mind you no one else seemed to think that there was a problem so perhaps I was worrying over nothing? (Again!) We certainly went down well which I guess is the main thing.
I spent much of Christmas Day in the company of Wilko Johnson, Norman Watt-Roy and Dylan Howe - I'd bought myself the recently-released 'Live At Koko' DVD for Christmas and had saved it to watch on the day, and I must say that it was well worth waiting for. A live DVD of the great man has long been overdue, and this is an absolutely superb release that captures the band in all their not-inconsiderable glory. Brilliantly filmed and well recorded, it's a fitting tribute to the mighty Mr. Johnson and his band.
The Upper Cut have played at The Dolphin in Uxbridge many times, including the last two Boxing Day evenings; I was a bit surprised when Noel the guv'nor asked us to play again this year as I thought he might have wanted a different band this year but I'm pleased that he did as it turned out to be a very memorable evening. Back in the 1990s Roger (drums) Terry (bass) and myself had a rhythm and blues band called The Informers with singer Bryan Byford - the band dissolved when he and his wife Judy moved to Ireland and none of us had seen them for around 15 years, so it was a great surprise when they turned up at the gig. Bryan joined us for 'Shaking All Over' and 'Baby Please Don't Go' and sounded in fine voice as did Big Al Reed who sang 'Hoochie Coochie Man' with our singer Terry on harmonica; we were a little shaky to begin with (we'd not played live for a couple of months) but all pulled together after a couple of numbers and our show ended with much dancing and merriment all round.
The next day (Friday I think - am I the only person who loses track of what day it is at this time of year?) saw Utter Madness play The Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mere. When we arrived the tide was out, and there was definitely something rather bizarre about driving along the pier in the dark with no water either side of us. The venue itself was rather bizarre too, with a stage and PA system set up among the fairground amusements. Very strange. With it being a blustery and rainy evening we all wondered if there'd be anyone at the show, but over 200 people turned up. Excellent! Our two 45 minute sets of Madness and ska classics got the general approval of all concerned, although our surrogate Suggs Tony thought he heard someone shout 'you're the worst Madness tribute band ever' at one point. I didn't hear it myself so am going to say that he was mistaken... and anyway, we were good!
And yesterday Big Al and the band played a 5pm show at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook. There have been no gigs there for a few months as it's been undergoing a refit, and I must say that they've made a very good job of it. We made a very good job of our show too, playing 3 sets and then being offered more money to play for longer. Oo-er! A good 'last-gig-of-the-year' for the band, and with shows already booked into the middle of next year it's looking good for The Blistering Buicks.
Ok - I've got to spend the rest of today going through the songs for tomorrow's New Year's Eve gig with Mr. Tibbs at The Greyhound in Chalfont St. Peter. I did some work on them on Saturday, and there are the best part of 40 songs to be played - better get on with it then...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Teenage depression
Sad news - Dave Higgs has died. As guitarist with Eddie And The Hot Rods (and principle songwriter for the early part of their career) he helped bridge the gap between pub rock and the souped-up rhythm and blues of Dr. Feelgood and the punk power and perfection of The Sex Pistols, and as such it could be argued helped to change the face of rock music - no mean feat if you think about it. I bought their 'Live At The Marquee' EP (remember EPs kids?!?) when it came out and can honestly say that at that point I'd never heard a record like it - an energy overload with Higgs's brilliant guitar work driving it all along. The show I saw the band play at Brunel University in Uxbridge way back in 1977 remains one of the most exciting musical performances that I've ever been lucky enough to witness (here's the band with one of Dave's best songs 'The Beginning Of The End' from around the same time - great stuff!) and 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' is a genuine rock classic. Cheers Dave - it wouldn't have been the same without you.
Coincidentally I saw the current lineup of Dave's old band at Oceana (an unlikely type of venue for such an evening, it used to be the 'Bailey's' nightclub) in Watford last Tuesday evening, as part of a 'dream bill' that also included Nine Below Zero and Wilko Johnson. The Hot Rods were as great as ever, with Barrie Masters in fine voice and the band matching him blow for blow. When they encored with 'Get Out Of Denver' it almost felt as though the headline band had been on - but no, 20 minutes later it's time for Nine Below Zero, another band that I saw play an incredible Brunel show back in the day. I think they played eight encores, and when we came out it had been snowing - not quite nine below zero outside, but enough for an old (then young!) romantic like me to remember forever. With Brendan O'Neill on drums and Brian Bethell back in the fold Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham gave a masterclass in rhythm and blues, with original songs easily holding their own next to the old classics and Feltham's harmonica sounding as amazing as it ever did. I'll bet I wasn't the only person who dug out their copy on 'Live At The Marquee' the next day... and what can I say about Wilko Johnson that I haven't said before? The man continues to defy medical science and is still delivering the goods. Wonderful stuff. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I saw him at Brunel University too. Perhaps I should have just moved there?!?
Wednesday night I rehearsed with Mr. Tibbs - I'm playing with them on New Year's Eve at The Greyhound in Chalfont St. Peter and as you can imagine there were quite a few songs to look at. There won't be a chance for another rehearsal before the show so time was at a premium, and while we managed to play through most (but not all) of the material that we're intending to play I can still see myself having to do a bit more homework before the night...
On Friday I found myself at The 12 Bar Club with Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes. We'd gone into town to spend a bit of time in The West End as it was Pete's late brother Dave's birthday in the week (I played guitar at his funeral, you can read the story here if you like) and the area was a great favourite of his; when I saw that Pope were playing we decided to end our evening in Denmark Street. I was always a fan of The Chords, and hoped that Chris Pope's latest band would be in the same vein - I'm pleased to say that they were absolutely excellent, loud and brash and with great songs. And if that wasn't enough they ended with 'Maybe Tomorrow'. I'll definitely be looking out for them in the future.
I played my first show with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks since mid-November on Saturday night, at The Three Mariners in Bagshot. I managed to spend a bit of time on Friday afternoon running through some of the songs, and I'm very glad that I did as I still had the odd blank moment. It's weird - it's only been a few weeks since I last played with the band, but given what I've done in the meantime it almost feels like a lifetime ago. Nevertheless it was a good show, not least given the fact that Al had been in hospital earlier in the week with an injured leg and so was in a fair bit of pain throughout the show. I thought that he did well to get through it at all.
Talking of bands that I haven't played in for a while - The Upper Cut gathered at RnR Studios on Sunday afternoon to rehearse for our upcoming Boxing Day show at The Dolphin in Uxbridge. A most enjoyable 4 hour session saw us running through a fair bit of our repertoire, as well as learning a couple of new songs and tightening up arrangements of some of the older ones. It's always a great band to play in, and it's a shame that we've not had many gigs lately - let's hope that we can get a bit more work next year.
And last night I went to the jam night at The Three Wishes in Edgware. I haven't been there for a month or so as I've been away gigging, and it was interesting to find myself being blanked by a couple of people - surely they're not jealous? Ooooh... I really must write a piece on jam nights one day!
Right - I'm off to play at The Crown in Cowley with Big Al and the boys - have a happy Christmas y'all...
Coincidentally I saw the current lineup of Dave's old band at Oceana (an unlikely type of venue for such an evening, it used to be the 'Bailey's' nightclub) in Watford last Tuesday evening, as part of a 'dream bill' that also included Nine Below Zero and Wilko Johnson. The Hot Rods were as great as ever, with Barrie Masters in fine voice and the band matching him blow for blow. When they encored with 'Get Out Of Denver' it almost felt as though the headline band had been on - but no, 20 minutes later it's time for Nine Below Zero, another band that I saw play an incredible Brunel show back in the day. I think they played eight encores, and when we came out it had been snowing - not quite nine below zero outside, but enough for an old (then young!) romantic like me to remember forever. With Brendan O'Neill on drums and Brian Bethell back in the fold Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham gave a masterclass in rhythm and blues, with original songs easily holding their own next to the old classics and Feltham's harmonica sounding as amazing as it ever did. I'll bet I wasn't the only person who dug out their copy on 'Live At The Marquee' the next day... and what can I say about Wilko Johnson that I haven't said before? The man continues to defy medical science and is still delivering the goods. Wonderful stuff. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I saw him at Brunel University too. Perhaps I should have just moved there?!?
Wednesday night I rehearsed with Mr. Tibbs - I'm playing with them on New Year's Eve at The Greyhound in Chalfont St. Peter and as you can imagine there were quite a few songs to look at. There won't be a chance for another rehearsal before the show so time was at a premium, and while we managed to play through most (but not all) of the material that we're intending to play I can still see myself having to do a bit more homework before the night...
On Friday I found myself at The 12 Bar Club with Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes. We'd gone into town to spend a bit of time in The West End as it was Pete's late brother Dave's birthday in the week (I played guitar at his funeral, you can read the story here if you like) and the area was a great favourite of his; when I saw that Pope were playing we decided to end our evening in Denmark Street. I was always a fan of The Chords, and hoped that Chris Pope's latest band would be in the same vein - I'm pleased to say that they were absolutely excellent, loud and brash and with great songs. And if that wasn't enough they ended with 'Maybe Tomorrow'. I'll definitely be looking out for them in the future.
I played my first show with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks since mid-November on Saturday night, at The Three Mariners in Bagshot. I managed to spend a bit of time on Friday afternoon running through some of the songs, and I'm very glad that I did as I still had the odd blank moment. It's weird - it's only been a few weeks since I last played with the band, but given what I've done in the meantime it almost feels like a lifetime ago. Nevertheless it was a good show, not least given the fact that Al had been in hospital earlier in the week with an injured leg and so was in a fair bit of pain throughout the show. I thought that he did well to get through it at all.
Talking of bands that I haven't played in for a while - The Upper Cut gathered at RnR Studios on Sunday afternoon to rehearse for our upcoming Boxing Day show at The Dolphin in Uxbridge. A most enjoyable 4 hour session saw us running through a fair bit of our repertoire, as well as learning a couple of new songs and tightening up arrangements of some of the older ones. It's always a great band to play in, and it's a shame that we've not had many gigs lately - let's hope that we can get a bit more work next year.
And last night I went to the jam night at The Three Wishes in Edgware. I haven't been there for a month or so as I've been away gigging, and it was interesting to find myself being blanked by a couple of people - surely they're not jealous? Ooooh... I really must write a piece on jam nights one day!
Right - I'm off to play at The Crown in Cowley with Big Al and the boys - have a happy Christmas y'all...
Monday, December 02, 2013
The story so far - so far...
'It's all glamour this touring lark' thought Leigh as he sat attempting to superglue his glasses back together. 'Shouldn't a guitar hero like me have somebody to do this for them? And for that matter shouldn't I be able to afford a new pair?'
Actually I didn't think anything of the sort. It was just another unlikely thing that I've been surprised to find myself doing over the past five days on The Damned / Ruts D.C. 2013 British tour. Expect the unexpected, as the old saying goes.
The Damned and indeed their crew are all very nice chaps, and after a sticky start in Bristol (Dave Vanian's in-ear monitors failed for the first three songs of the show meaning that he couldn't sing until they were fixed) they've been playing brilliantly. And our 50-ish minute set has been going down very well with all concerned - I was particularly pleased with Captain Sensible's comments to me after the aforementioned Bristol show ('your tone is immaculate - you're playing's shit!' I've taken it as a compliment!) and the next night in Portsmouth ('load of bloody rubbish!') especially since he spent much of our set in Leamington Spa on Saturday heckling Segs from the side of the stage. All good humoured stuff (I hope!) and a fair indication of the overall atmosphere of proceedings. I've been putting a daily photo up on my Facebook page, Dave and Segs have been putting reports up on Louder Than War (they're also on the band's Facebook page here) and there's already a fair bit of stuff already appearing on the Internet (for example here are three songs from Portsmouth from YouTube, and here's an audio clip of 'In A Rut' from last night in Buckley) so it's all going well. Today is a day off in Leicester (we're at The Academy tomorrow) and I've treated myself to a hotel room to have a break from the tour bus (the bunk beds on the tour bus are just about / not quite big enough for someone of my height!) and to spend a bit of time working songs that I've got to learn for a New Year's Eve gig depping with Mr. Tibbs (we never close!) In fact I'd better stop typing this and get on with that - more news next time...
Actually I didn't think anything of the sort. It was just another unlikely thing that I've been surprised to find myself doing over the past five days on The Damned / Ruts D.C. 2013 British tour. Expect the unexpected, as the old saying goes.
The Damned and indeed their crew are all very nice chaps, and after a sticky start in Bristol (Dave Vanian's in-ear monitors failed for the first three songs of the show meaning that he couldn't sing until they were fixed) they've been playing brilliantly. And our 50-ish minute set has been going down very well with all concerned - I was particularly pleased with Captain Sensible's comments to me after the aforementioned Bristol show ('your tone is immaculate - you're playing's shit!' I've taken it as a compliment!) and the next night in Portsmouth ('load of bloody rubbish!') especially since he spent much of our set in Leamington Spa on Saturday heckling Segs from the side of the stage. All good humoured stuff (I hope!) and a fair indication of the overall atmosphere of proceedings. I've been putting a daily photo up on my Facebook page, Dave and Segs have been putting reports up on Louder Than War (they're also on the band's Facebook page here) and there's already a fair bit of stuff already appearing on the Internet (for example here are three songs from Portsmouth from YouTube, and here's an audio clip of 'In A Rut' from last night in Buckley) so it's all going well. Today is a day off in Leicester (we're at The Academy tomorrow) and I've treated myself to a hotel room to have a break from the tour bus (the bunk beds on the tour bus are just about / not quite big enough for someone of my height!) and to spend a bit of time working songs that I've got to learn for a New Year's Eve gig depping with Mr. Tibbs (we never close!) In fact I'd better stop typing this and get on with that - more news next time...
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
What is a 'booking fee' anyway?
Well - the Wilko Johnson farewell gigs have taken over the World! Ok so that's probably a bit of an overstatement, but the March 6th show at Koko in Camden sold out in no time as did an added date on the 10th and indeed the rest of the shows. It's sad in a way as obviously the increased interest is due to his illness, but also great to see such support for the man. That said there are quite a few tickets on eBay and less reputable agencies for vastly inflated prices which is a great shame - as usual the 'real' fans either miss the shows or are obliged to pay whatever price the ticket touts decide is 'reasonable'. Surely more can be done to stop this from happening - there are stories on Wilko's Facebook page about people able to buy as many as twenty tickets when the limit should theoretically have been eight. Very poor. I managed to get tickets for both of the London shows - I'm sure I'm not the only person who considered giving them a miss and remembering him as I do now, but in the end couldn't resist seeing him just a couple more times. In the meantime Wilko gave an excellent interview on BBC Radio 4 this week in which he demonstrates his fabled guitar technique, reminisces about his career and tells of how his cancer diagnosis made him feel 'vividly alive'. It's inspirational stuff, as you can hear here - these are going be very emotional shows.
On a (much) lighter note the excellent Music Ruined My Life blog currently has last December's 12 Bar Club show from myself and T.V Smith (joined for a few numbers by Pascal Briggs) available to download - you can read my story of the evening here if you'd like to, and can download our hour-ish long set here. I must have a listen to it myself! Blogmeister Jeffen is promising 'more of this under-appreciated figure's accomplishments' very soon. Amazingly I think he means me! Oo-er!
Two very different gigs this weekend, during the course of which I played over 50 different songs. On Friday Big Al Reed and The Cardiac Arrests (I wonder if I'm the only band member who thinks that we could do with a better name? I must ask them next time!) visited The Swan in Iver. Al and myself generally attend the first-Sunday-of-the-month open mic night there (indeed we'll hopefully be there this coming Sunday) but this was the first gig for the band, and it generally went well especially considering that we hadn't played together since back in December. I still think we could do with some rockier material to balance out the slow stuff, but there's no denying Al's ability to sing a ballad. Overall a good gig, as was Saturday's show depping for Mr. Tibbs at Tropic At Ruislip. The venue usually puts on shows on Friday nights, so this was something of an experimental evening for the club. It was rather experimental from my point of view too, as I only had one rehearsal with the band and had to get to grips with material from the likes of INXS, Duran Duran and Simple Minds among (many) others, none of which I'd played before. In the event the evening exceeded expectations both in terms of the number of people in the audience and the band's performance - I thought that I'd made any number of wrong turns during the show, but talking to people afterwards everyone seemed to think that it sounded great - and I for one wasn't about to tell them that they were wrong.
Sunday night I appeared on the Music Scene Investigation podcast for the first time in several months - I initially had problems hearing the tracks to be reviewed (fortunately I decided to check that they were working before the broadcast began!) and there were a few issues with Tom's video signal during the show, but generally this was probably the most enjoyable MSI show that I've been involved with. The three songs were all of such a high standard that it was very difficult to decide which one came should come out on top, and somehow I ended up with the casting vote which I don't mind admitting was quite nerve racking. You can check out the three artists concerned via these links - Garrett Harbison, Athena Creese and World5 - and watch the show here - see if you think we (or indeed I) made the correct decision.
And last night myself and the two Terry's from The Upper Cut (Roger couldn't make it sadly) got together to discuss ideas for new songs, getting more gigs and general band stuff - we're at The Half Moon in Harrow this coming Saturday for the first time in ages which should be a good night, although I remember last time the venue had problems with neighbours who thought that the bands were playing too loud. An interesting evening in prospect then...
On a (much) lighter note the excellent Music Ruined My Life blog currently has last December's 12 Bar Club show from myself and T.V Smith (joined for a few numbers by Pascal Briggs) available to download - you can read my story of the evening here if you'd like to, and can download our hour-ish long set here. I must have a listen to it myself! Blogmeister Jeffen is promising 'more of this under-appreciated figure's accomplishments' very soon. Amazingly I think he means me! Oo-er!
Two very different gigs this weekend, during the course of which I played over 50 different songs. On Friday Big Al Reed and The Cardiac Arrests (I wonder if I'm the only band member who thinks that we could do with a better name? I must ask them next time!) visited The Swan in Iver. Al and myself generally attend the first-Sunday-of-the-month open mic night there (indeed we'll hopefully be there this coming Sunday) but this was the first gig for the band, and it generally went well especially considering that we hadn't played together since back in December. I still think we could do with some rockier material to balance out the slow stuff, but there's no denying Al's ability to sing a ballad. Overall a good gig, as was Saturday's show depping for Mr. Tibbs at Tropic At Ruislip. The venue usually puts on shows on Friday nights, so this was something of an experimental evening for the club. It was rather experimental from my point of view too, as I only had one rehearsal with the band and had to get to grips with material from the likes of INXS, Duran Duran and Simple Minds among (many) others, none of which I'd played before. In the event the evening exceeded expectations both in terms of the number of people in the audience and the band's performance - I thought that I'd made any number of wrong turns during the show, but talking to people afterwards everyone seemed to think that it sounded great - and I for one wasn't about to tell them that they were wrong.
Sunday night I appeared on the Music Scene Investigation podcast for the first time in several months - I initially had problems hearing the tracks to be reviewed (fortunately I decided to check that they were working before the broadcast began!) and there were a few issues with Tom's video signal during the show, but generally this was probably the most enjoyable MSI show that I've been involved with. The three songs were all of such a high standard that it was very difficult to decide which one came should come out on top, and somehow I ended up with the casting vote which I don't mind admitting was quite nerve racking. You can check out the three artists concerned via these links - Garrett Harbison, Athena Creese and World5 - and watch the show here - see if you think we (or indeed I) made the correct decision.
And last night myself and the two Terry's from The Upper Cut (Roger couldn't make it sadly) got together to discuss ideas for new songs, getting more gigs and general band stuff - we're at The Half Moon in Harrow this coming Saturday for the first time in ages which should be a good night, although I remember last time the venue had problems with neighbours who thought that the bands were playing too loud. An interesting evening in prospect then...
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Horse latitudes
In the meantime it's been snowing, and as usual when this happens the entire country has ground to a halt. Well it feels as though it has - I was hoping to go to see a Led Zeppelin tribute band called The Black Dogz at Tropic At Ruislip but according to the venue's website the show was 'cancelled due to bad weather'. Maybe it's just as well that I don't have any gigs until next weekend? Actually it's never good not to have any gigs but I doubt that there would have been anyone watching us if we had have been playing - no doubt they'd all have been elsewhere panic buying bread or milk or something. And I was due to meet up with Andy and Sam from Back To Zero last night for a 'get-the-ball-rolling' discussion about the Cambridge gig in May and more, but common sense prevailed (that and the fact that half of The London Underground was being dug up) and we decided to postpone our meeting until the roads were a bit safer. Still there are two shows to look forward to next weekend - on Friday Big Al Reed and the Cardiac Arrests visit The Swan in Iver while the next night I'm depping with Mr. Tibbs at Tropic At Ruislip. And on Sunday evening I'm making my first appearance of the year on Music Scene Investigation podcast. That's more like it.
To end this posting on a somewhat sombre note, Wilko Johnson's farewell gig dates have been announced - tickets go on sale tomorrow (Monday) and I'm intending to be at the London show. It seems so strange to think that it'll be the last time I and many others see the great man play - if you're there I'll see you for a drink or two...
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