That Was The Year That Wasn't

What follows was written quickly. Rather like this year it's a bit disjointed but, rather like this year, it is what it is.

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‘For a minute there, I lost myself...’

Well. You know that things are getting weird when you find yourself quoting a line from a Radiohead song.

We're in the middle of the Christmas holiday, nearing the end of the strangest of years. Pretty much everyone I've talked to on the phone in the last few days is bored. Lost. Desperate.

When will this all end? Indeed, where will this all end? I've been asking myself that a fair bit lately. Maybe you have too? 

I miss people. I never really thought that I would, but I do. At least I think that I do. I've always spent a lot of time on own - not particularly through choice, it's just how things have worked out. I've never had lots of friends, I've not got much to say for myself, women get bored with me - often when they discover that I don't think about very much other than guitars - and I often find social situations with lots of people difficult to cope with.

Ah - but hang on a minute? I've got friends. I talk to people when I'm out and about, occasionally about things other than guitars. Every once in a while some of them are women. And aren't gigs 'social situations with lots of people'?

 

Gigs. I remember them. Maybe you do too? They were great weren't they? Well, I thought that they were. I wonder if they will ever happen like we used to know them again. 

Sometimes in the last few months I've wondered if I would ever play another gig. That's not a good thing to find yourself thinking. Having said that The Slogans have managed to play three shows since we last spoke - a Sunday afternoon 'sit-down-three-piece-without-the drums' show in The Dolphin in Uxbridge way back in August (I really must update this blog more often mustn't I? More about that in a minute...) and then a whopping two gigs in October, and on successive Fridays at that. We played another sit down show at The Horns in Watford on the 16th, then Dylan made a triumphant return behind the kit the 23rd at The Cavern in Raynes Park. All were highly enjoyable, although I'd be lying if I didn't say that the third show beat the the other two in the fun stakes. Mind you I realised that I wasn't anywhere near match fit at the Cavern show as I was sweating by the second song and not playing particularly well. I got going in the end (I wouldn't have mentioned it here if I hadn't!) and we were due to make a return visit to the venue in December - but, of course, we didn’t. 

It now feels as though Ruts D.C. have postponed more gigs than we've ever played - we haven't of course, but that’s what it feels like. Incredibly we’ve released two - count ‘em, two! - albums this year (since you were wondering- the live ‘40 Years Of The Crack’ recorded on our 2019 UK tour, and ‘ElectrAcoustiC’ which features reworked old songs; both are available on our website) and have somehow played two - count ‘em, two! - gigs. Both of these were sit down shows at The New Cross Inn earlier this month (the 14th and 15th December) and while both were ostensibly acoustic I used an electric guitar for a fair bit of the evening. We were supposed to play three shows, but as we were getting our gear together for the first gig we heard that London was going into Tier 3 of Coronavirus restrictions on the morning of our third show. Much incredulity followed, followed by much swearing... the shows went well, and then we all went home. That was that for this year.

And I even went to some - well, three - gigs. I saw Steve Simpson with his new band The Waders a couple of times at The Cavern (both shows were excellent) and witnessed the mighty Menace at The Holroyd Arms in Guildford. The bands were standing, the audience were seated and I don't mind admitting that I was almost euphoric at times. I really like music. That hasn't changed.

But at least I managed to play some shows. There are many increasingly despondent musicians that haven't played at all this year. Do you remember that ridiculously offensive 'Fatima' advert? Vile wasn't it? Leaving aside the fact that there were some excellent parodies out in no time at all it seemed to me that it was yet another example of how this increasingly appalling government have absolutely no idea whatsoever how to handle the situation. I for one have long been fed up with ghastly toffs telling us what we should think and do - now an endless procession of faceless ministers appear on television instead, none of whom take any responsibility for the current chaos. Tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs, physical and mental health problems are increasing at a frightening rate and this gang of goons will all get peerages and houses big enough to be seen from outer space. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The tiers of a clown indeed.

In an attempt to make some sort of sense of things and indeed to put my time to good use I decided to try to learn a few things on the computer. Among other things I've had a go at making DVDs (you want a gig bootlegging from YouTube? I'm your man!) and perhaps more constructively I've been finding my way around Garageband. This as you may know is a recording app, and after much brow-furrowing I used it to contribute guitars to 'World Of Sunlight' by Pete 'Joyless' Jones back in the summer - since then I've recorded my parts for a new Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants single (our 'History' EP was also released back in June - under normal circumstances this would have been a really good year for me in terms of record releases!) and quite a few new song ideas. I still get a bit stuck here and there, but I'm quite pleased with progress so far. Lots of people are recording at home these days - so does this mean the end of recording studios? Will they be yet another casualty of 2020? Let's hope not - the three days Ruts D.C. spent at Perry Vale Studios with Pat Collier recording 'ElectrAcoustiC' were highlights of my year. Admittedly highlights have been few and far between this year, but you know what I mean I think. And surely I could have written more blog posts? Well I could - if there was anything to write about. You'd soon get tired of me ranting on and on about how evil The Tories are over and over again - I'm certainly getting fed up with thinking about it.

So - what now? There's a vaccine or two around, and talk of 'getting back to normal' sometime soon - but will we? Will the world we knew ever return? It's quite a thought isn't it? I'm optimistic that it will - most of the time. Pubs are closing at a depressing rate, often as a result of governmental incompetence which has resulted in the rules changing so often, and I fear that many venues will go the same way. I wonder if people are losing the habit of going out - then again a lot of folk sound as though they would go to the opening of an envelope if it got them out of the house. 

Well - that was 2020. Let's see what 2021 has to offer. It will be better.

It will be better - won't it?

Rebellion continues

So - Prince dies on the Queen's birthday. Weird. Mind you so much that is associated with Prince is 'weird' isn't it? I can't pretend to have been his biggest fan or even to have known much of his work - I've got a compilation album that I bought for a couple of pounds in a sale, I doubt that I've played it more than half a dozen times - but there's no denying that he was a very talented man. And there have been far too many well-known people leaving the building this year haven't there? And we're only (gulp!) a third of the way through 2016...

Anyway this will be a fairly short post as there is much to do - Ruts D.C. return to the stage next Saturday at The 'Scotland Calling' Festival in Glasgow so we're rehearsing for that this week as well as filming a promotional video for our upcoming 'Psychic Attack' single and continuing work on the 'Music Must Destroy' album. Exciting times - and I'm pleased to say that we've been added to this year's Rebellion Festival line-up which is more good news. In the meantime The Upper Cut played what is becoming an annual show for us at Buckinghamshire Golf Club on Friday night - we'd been in a room just off from the bar in previous years but this time we'd graduated to what might best be described as a bloomin' great marquee near the main building. Our first set saw repeated requests for 'Johnny B. Goode' - the dance floor was completely empty until we played it when it instantly filled up. Am I the only person who thinks that Chuck Berry wrote many better songs? Oh well - it certainly did the trick as our second set saw dancing and cavorting on a serious scale. A good gig.

The next night night I journeyed up to The Lexington in King's Cross to catch a splendid evening of punk rock that featured Johnny Moped supported by T.V. Smith and The Bored Teenagers. I arrived just in time to miss first-band-on The Weird Things - a shame since I heard good reports about their show so I must catch them in the future. T.V. and co went on just before 9 o'clock - playing a set mostly consisting of old Adverts songs they bought the proverbial house down with a show that was as good as anything that I will see this year. And Johnny Moped were terrific too, with the man himself as unhinged as ever and the new material sitting well next to the old classics. A top evening all round. 

Right - a quiet night tonight methinks. It's going to be a long week...

Young, gifted and skint

Well that was a busy few days in mad-guitar-World...

On Thursday night The Skints played at Brunel University in Uxbridge. I'd heard a lot about the band not least from my old friend Andy Peart (more about him in a minute) but had never seen them or indeed heard much by them. This was a good chance to rectify the situation although since the show was a 'student only' event (I thought they stopped doing that sort of thing years ago?!?) I was doubtful that I'd be able to attend - fortunately the afore-mentioned Andy knows the band and managed to get my name on the guest list. I spent a good amount of the first song trying to work out where the lead vocal was coming from (I never spot a singing drummer!) which set the tone for the rest of the evening as the young lady in the middle played a bewildering array of instruments - keyboards, guitar, flute, saxophone and probably some more that I've forgotten - during the course of their set. Equally bewildering was their choice of Sam Cooke's 'You Send Me' as a cover version - a great song but for me a bit out of place. Still a good gig overall and I'm glad that I managed to see the band at last.

Incidentally Andy used to write for Sounds magazine as well as producing the excellent 'So What' fanzine - he now writes for 'Vive Le Rock' and has a piece on Ruts D.C. in the next edition. Excellent!

Talking of Ruts D.C. - at last weekend's show in Stockton-on-Tees several people told me that Stiff Little Fingers had played 'Staring At The Rude Boys' at their Newcastle gig the previous evening. I've since discovered that they've been playing it on the whole tour with Jake Burns preceding it with words to the effect of 'if you saw this band you were very lucky'. Sometime during the day on Thursday I received a call from Segs asking me to 'have a guess what I'm doing tomorrow night'...
Myself and my old punk mate Pete made it through the wind and rain to The Assembly House in Kentish Town for 8.30pm. I'd told Pete something like 'a mate of mine is working with SLF' and we were to meet him in said public house at the allotted time; the first gig he ever went to was Ruts D.C. at The Fulham Greyhound in 1981, and his face when Segs came over was a sight to behold. After a quick drink we walked over the road to The Forum where the band were due on at 9.30pm. I've always been something of a fan of the band, having first seen them around the time of the 'Hanx!' live album. These days Ali McMordie is back on bass (replacing Bruce Foxton) and they sound pretty much the same as they ever did i.e. very good indeed. Several new songs were featured, and they all sounded good enough for me to say that the projected new album should be well worth getting. After the main set finished with 'Suspect Device' they went off for a few minutes before returning for Jake to say a few words before introducing Segs who came on to a hero's welcome. 'A blistering version!' said Dave Ruffy as the song ended and I have to agree. (You can find out how good it was for yourself if you click here.) After the show we met up with Segs (he and Dave were immediately collared by fans for photographs) and then myself, Pete and punk gig stalwart Coppo went to the aftershow party in the upstairs bar. We set ourselves a curfew of midnight, which was just as well given that we got back to Pete's car to find that the hazard warning lights were flashing. We decided that someone must have bumped into it as Pete was certain that he hadn't left them on - either way we were faced with the grim prospect of a flat battery. 'Don't worry lads' I said with far too much confidence given what happened next, 'I'm in Green Flag'. I get membership with my bank account - but when I spoke to them I found that I doesn't cover me in someone else's car and that wed have to pay a call out charge (£108!) and further charges according to what then had to be done. Bugger! After a suitable amount of swearing Pete came up with a plan - ring around cab companies and see if any of them have any jump leads. Within 10 minutes we were pushing the car from Kentish Town Road into a side street where a cabbie gave up a jump start (at a cost of £10) and we were on our way. An eventful evening - but that 'ring a cab company' idea from Pete was a good one wasn't it?   

T.V. and Leigh share a
'Status Quo moment'.

My only gig of the weekend was my first show of 2013 with T.V. Smith, at The New Cross Inn in New Cross. (I've been looking forward to typing 'New Cross Inn in New Cross' all weekend. It's a simple life sometimes isn't it?) Coppo offered myself and T.V. a lift to the show (that's another drink I owe you mate) but heavy-ish traffic meant that we sadly arrived too late to see the wonderfully-named Fishtits meaning that as I can't find them anywhere on the Internet we can only speculate on how they sound; however I did see Emergency Bitter (great raucous fun), On Trial UK (good old school punk) and The Phobics (excellent garage-y rock 'n' roll) all of whom were very entertaining. From our point of view we'd had a rehearsal on Wednesday which went well but I'd not had chance to run through the songs between then and the show meaning that I felt a little under-prepared. Whether this was the reason I started 'You Saved My Life Then Ruined It' in the wrong key I guess we'll never know. (It sounded terrible! T.V. thought that it was his fault - it wasn't!) That aside the show went very well, including responding to a call from the audience for 'The Servant' (we hadn't rehearsed that one or played it for ages - here it is from the gig!) and with T.V. as wonderfully energetic as ever. After the gig a chap came over and asked me if I'd sung with SLF the night before - he seemed terribly disappointed when I told him that it wasn't me. Well - it wasn't! In the meantime T.V. did a roaring trade in t-shirts and CDs including his latest re-issue, a Cheap anthology. I've been looking forward to this for some time, not least because I've written some sleeve notes for it - a blog posting on my (brief) involvement with the band will follow shortly but in the meantime you can get the disc from T.V.'s website here. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Back To Zero reconvened at Soundlab Studios in Loughton yesterday morning. Andy, Sam and Squirrel had got together in my absence last weekend, and we continued the good work with more progress being made and everybody pronouncing themselves happy with the way that things are going. There's still a fair bit of work to do before our gigs in May (more about them nearer the time) but it's all sounding very encouraging.
From there I made my way to The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge for the monthly open mic / jam night (actually more of a 'jam early-evening') which proved to be a highly enjoyable affair. It also proved to be a rather longer and shall we say 'confusing' session than I for one was anticipating so the exact details are sketchy, but it was a good way to end the weekend. That said I've got to leave in a half hour or so for an Upper Cut rehearsal, and I don't mind admitting that I feel, to use a technical term, absolutely knackered. Still the last thing that I'm going to do is complain - on Wednesday T.V. said that I'd 'spent too long in the wilderness' and that it was great to see me so busy. It was a nice thing for him to say, and without counting too many chickens there does seem to be a change in the air at the moment on many levels, although next month is significantly quieter than this one and I still don't seem to have very much money... ah well, let's see what happens next.

Well what happens next is a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' this Friday at The Hare And Hounds in Birmingham. I've never had a launch party before! It should be fun... and I'm on Music Scene Investigation this Sunday evening at 9pm - on with the big headphones once again!