In mod we trust

Mod has been in the news a lot lately, with Bradley Wiggins getting a knighthood in the wake of his success at last year's Olympic Games. (Apparently he was at the Pete Townshend book signing back in October but I didn't see him. Mind you, I wasn't looking for him!) For many mod hasn't really ever gone away, as is evidenced by events such as The Mods Mayday 2013 weekend at The Alley Club in Cambridge this coming May. The Saturday night line up includes Back To Zero whose single 'Your Side Of Heaven' is a well-thought-of artefact from the late '70s mod revival that occurred around the time of the 'Quadrophenia' film when bands like The Chords, Secret Affair and The Purple Hearts all appeared in the shadow of The Jam. So why am I telling you this? Well all things being equal (which of course they very rarely are!) I shall be playing guitar for the afore-mentioned BTZ alongside original members Sam Burnett on guitar and vocals (he's currently in Department S) and Andy Moore on drums who plays alongside me in The Flying Squad. I'm really looking forward to this - I've been listening to their album 'It's All Relative' rather a lot lately (well, I've got songs to learn!) and there's some great stuff on there. And I must say that I liked a lot of the other music from the same time (my brother played the 'Mods Mayday '79' album to death back in the day) as well as being a fan of the clothes and the general look too. Still it'll be good to try something a bit different - there's a meeting / initial rehearsal planned for later this month so we'll see how it all goes but I'm optimistic that it'll be a great thing to be involved in.

Staying with the mod theme (if a little tenuously) my first gig of the year as a spectator took place on Friday when I went back to Tropic At Ruislip to see Who's Who. I never saw The Who play with Keith Moon (I was too young - honest!) but I'm reliably informed by many who did (and indeed by no lesser person than Peter 'Dougal' Butler, Moonie's driver and assistant for many years) that the drummer in Who's Who is the nearest that any of us will see these days. He certainly seems to me to have got it right both musically and visually, which puts Who's Who in a position to be as authentic tribute to the original band that anyone is ever likely to be. I could pick holes in it all but there's no point - what they do they do very well indeed, and you can't ask for much more than that can you? Well, I don't think that you can.

My first appearance on 2013 with a guitar in my hand was at the first-Sunday-of-the-month open mic night at The Swan in Iver last night, and a very enjoyable evening it was too. John the organiser sang a few songs as did Big Al Reed, Les Payne played some solo acoustic originals, and we all wished that there were a few more people there. Still it's the first one of the year so hopefully it'll all pick up a bit for next month's February 3rd date.

And it's my first 'proper' gig of the year this coming Friday when The Upper Cut return to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham. That should be a good night - sadly the rest of January and the whole of February are worryingly quiet at the moment. Time to get out and look for some gigs then...

'There's only one word for that - magic darts!'

Sad to see that Sid Waddell has died - his darts commentaries were always entertaining and often hilarious, and as these quotes show he (like the always amazing Stuart Hall) had a way with the English language that most of us can only aspire to. It's a shame to see him go.

Sticking with sport the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games was a somewhat baffling affair for me, probably best summed up by observing that the mighty Ray Davies sang one song while the always overrated George Michael performed (in the loosest sense of the word) two. Mind you I've never been able to take him seriously since I saw Vic and Bob's parody of him... right at the very end The Who roared through a medley which showed that they've lost none of their firepower, and the realisation that Morgan Nicholls was playing bass took me back to the days when The Price used to play with The Senseless Things, and indeed I used to attend their gigs on a regular basis. He was always a great bass player, and he sounded good here. I wonder if he's in line for the upcoming American tour?

Well whilst I generally hesitate to use words like 'normal' here (for fairly obvious reasons!) I guess it's been a case of back to normal in my post-Rebellion Festival World (incidentally here are some Ruts D.C. and T.V. Smith pics - pretty good eh?) and indeed back to the pubs with The Upper Cut, who played two shows last weekend. It's always a bit strange to follow a big show with a small one (or two) as however much you tell yourself that it's all part and parcel of being a musician it's pretty much impossible not to feel a bit deflated. Overall Friday's show at the Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge wasn't too bad although a couple of songs went wrong leaving your humble narrator in a suitably bad mood. That said we were invited back so we can't have been too bad! On the other hand Saturday's show at the Fox and Duck in Richmond bordered on farce, with the landlady attempting to pay us off and send us home early as the pub was virtually empty 20-or-so minutes before our allotted start time. In the event a few people showed up so she started complaining about bands playing too loud - never a good thing before you've even started playing - which resulted in Roger using hot rods instead of regular drum sticks and Terry the bass and myself playing so quietly that we could hear our unamplified guitar strings. Not good frankly, and I for one won't lose any sleep if we never go back.

This Friday night I managed to double book myself for the first time in ages. I'm still not sure how I managed it, but with The Upper Cut due to play at in Twickenham while Ska Madness were onstage in Southend there clearly had to be a bit of a compromise somewhere... in the event my good friend Pete went West (thanks Pete!) while I went East to The Maritime Room at The Cliffs Pavilion. Matt and myself played our first gig in this format back in February - tonight Russ is on saxophone for a show that could politely be described as 'chaotic' in places (I really must have a good listen to the backing tracks one day; mind you, judging by this performance we all should!) but was definitely good fun, and the audience reaction had all three of us and a visiting CBB bassman Squirrel all agreeing that we should form a ska band. I wonder if we ever will?

And last night - well last night, Saturday night, I wasn't gigging. Back to normal indeed. Bah.

Do you remember rock 'n' roll radio?

It's been far too long since The Ramones have featured in these hallowed pages, and with The Rebellion Festival happening in Blackpool this coming weekend it seems to me to be a good time to feature one of the greatest punk rock bands of them all again - so here they are in Lego form. The more cynical among us may see items such as this as proof that some people have too much time on their hands, but it made me smile so I thought I'd include it here. And since I do this blogging lark maybe I'm one of the people with too much time on their hands? Hmm... Rebellion-wise I'm playing with both Ruts D.C. and T.V. Smith on the Saturday night (thankfully the venues are within walking distance of each other!) with Public Image Ltd headlining. Sounds good doesn't it? It goes without saying that I'm really looking forward to it (but I've said it anyway - see what I mean about time on my hands?) and I'll no doubt write some hopelessly over-emotional piece on it here sometime around this time next week, but in the meantime if for some unfathomable reason you don't get the 'Hey! Ho! Lego!' gag then here is a fabulous clip of  'Blitzkrieg Bop' (and quite a few other songs too) at The Rainbow in 1977. Great stuff. And talking of Ruts D.C. I received an unexpected (and almost definitely unintentional!) birthday present on Tuesday when Steve Lamacq played 'Mighty Soldier' on his Radio 6music show. Excellent! 


In the midst of last week's Croatian adventure I heard the sad news that Jon Lord of Deep Purple had died. I think 'Black Night' must have been the first thing I heard by the band as a youngster, but like many people it was their live album 'Made In Japan' that really did it for me. Yes the songs were a bit too long (well it was the early Seventies maaan!) but the standard of playing was so exceptionally high that it somehow didn't matter. The sound of Lord duelling with Ritchie Blackmore sounded incredible to me (it still does!) although by the time I heard it that line-up of the band had split up - I eventually saw them in late 1993 just before Blackmore left the band for the last time, and although tensions were obvious the band gave a tremendous performance. Here is a clip of the man himself demonstrating his mighty Hammond Organ sound - he was indeed a great musician who leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of work.


Last Friday saw The Upper Cut play The Dolphin in Uxbridge. When I realised that we were playing on the same evening as the Olympic Games opening ceremony I suggested to Noel the landlord that we should perhaps change the date of our show, but he was confident that not everybody would be watching the ceremony on television, and indeed there would be people actively looking to avoid it and would therefore come out to watch a band. I wasn't so sure myself, but it turned out that he was absolutely correct (good!) and there was indeed a good sized audience. I could see the ceremony on the television above the pub fireplace - by the time we got to our second set the teams were arriving in the stadium, which created the slightly unsettling feeing that they were marching to our music. Well, that was how it looked to me... it was our first gig for a while so there were inevitably a couple of mad moments here and there but overall we played well and those present seemed to love it, and after encores a-plenty I finally got to have a couple of belated birthday beers, during which our drummer Roger's wife Jill told me that a fella had just said to her 'that guitarist should be on the stage'. Let's hope he was right! A top evening.
There were more than a few mad moments the next night with Big Al Reed at The Kings Arms in Harefield, where myself and Upper Cut bassist Terry joined Dave on drums and Chris on keyboards (both of whom play with Big Al in Midnight) to form a band labelled by Al as The Cardiac Arrests. Al gave us all a perspective setlist and some CDs to work from, and with no rehearsal it was a case of turning up and seeing what happened... considering how difficult some of the material was (have you any idea how many chords there are in 'Born To Run'?!?) we made a good job of things, and the audience seemed prepared to forgive the bits where it went wrong. Probably the worst aspect of the evening was Al's Egnater guitar amplifier going wrong; his and Terry's amps went off for a second or two (presumably there was a power failure to the back wall where they were both plugged in) and while Terry's came back on Al's sadly didn't. There were no nasty burning smells (!) so hopefully it's something simple like an internal fuse. Overall however it was a good enough show to have us all considering looking for some other gigs for the band, which can't be a bad thing if you think about it.


In the meantime I've just returned for rehearsing with T.V. Smith, and am rehearsing with Ruts D.C. tomorrow. Time to set the controls for next weekend then - and that's not a bad thing if you think about it either.

No time to kill

It's my 51st birthday today. Leaving aside the fact that it only seems like this time last week rather than this time last year that I had my 50th birthday this means that I'm now officially in my early fifties as opposed to, well, being 50. Again it doesn't seem that long ago that I would have considered that to be an impossible distance in the future; time flies as I said in the last posting, whether you're having fun or not.
I started my 51st year with an Upper Cut gig, and I'm pleased to say that I'm starting my 52nd year in the same way - we're at The Dolphin in Uxbridge this Friday, the same night as the opening ceremony of The London Olympics. I guess this means that everybody will be at home watching it on television (well, let's face it, no ordinary person can afford a ticket to be there in person can they?) and so there'll be no one at the gig. Bah! Oh well - we'll have a good time anyway!

The festival poster.

In the meantime the last gig of my 51st year (keep up at the back there!) was the first Ruts D.C. show of 2012, headlining the Thursday night of The Seasplash Festival at Fort Punta Christo in Pula, Croatia.
Sometime around 7.25 a.m. my Metropolitan Line train sat for just that little bit too long at Harrow On The Hill station. I exchanged a few nervous looks and bleary smiles with my fellow passengers until the tension was broken by a disembodied voice over the speakers telling us that the destination of the train had changed, and that it was now terminating at Harrow On The Hill. Relative disinterest immediately turned into panic followed by a near-stampede to get on to the train waiting on the adjacent platform - I soon realised that as I was carrying a bag, guitar and (for the first time on an excursion such as this) a pedalboard there was no way that I was going to get on board the already-congested train. Curses! Resigning myself to waiting for the next arrival I stumbled somewhat dejectedly back towards my original train, whereby I heard the driver saying something along the lines of 'well I don't know what that was all about but we're definitely going to Aldgate' and instigating another stampede in the process. I nearly got stuck in the doors, but even got my old seat back. An annoying little incident, which pales into insignificance compared to what happened next... 

The Adriatic Sea as seen
from Fort Punta Christo.

After getting a grown-up to help me to get my ticket for The Stansted Express (a rather optimistic name under the circumstances as we shall see...) I was directed to platform 2 at Liverpool Street station where said train was ready to leave. I always think it's good to be early getting to airports, and the 8.25 train should get me there with plenty of time to spare. Within a minute or so I was on my way - or was I? Looking around the carriage it was very quiet - where were all the people carrying baggage for their flights? And shouldn't this be a newer, more luxurious train? Hmm... after a couple of stops a chap got on and sat opposite me; I swallowed hard and asked the question - his reply of 'Enfield' was definitely not one that I wanted to hear... 
To cut a long story short (for once!) I eventually made it to Stansted Airport at 10.40 - the gate for our flight was closing at 11.05. Tour manager Pablo had left my tickets with in his words 'a very helpful lady' at the information desk in Area A, the Ryanair last minute check desk was suitably (and surprisingly) swift, the lady at the outsize baggage section took her time a bit under the circumstances and the £5 that I paid for priority security clearance proved to be well worth the money. When I got the gate 41 (they're always a long way off when you're late aren't they? Still at least I now hold the World land speed record...) I found everyone waiting to get on board, and then waited for 15 minutes before the queue started moving. What was all the fuss about eh?  

The view from the stage
during our soundcheck

After a thankfully uneventful flight we arrived at Trieste Airport (yes, I know that's in Italy, but this is Ryanair remember) where we met our driver Al and made the 2-and-a-bit hour journey from Italy to Croatia, passing through Slovenia on the way. I'd never been to any of the countries before, and so would have liked to have seen a bit more of them but found myself drifting in and out of consciousness as we travelled. Well, it had been an early start and a somewhat stressful morning so I guess that was to be expected, but what I did see was often spectacular, and the weather was absolutely splendid.

Seamus and the ill-fated
Hammond Organ

When we arrived at Fort Punta Christo another band was soundchecking so food and beer were both located (and were both excellent) before we set up our gear - I had a Fender Super Reverb combo which I'd not played through before, and I hope I get to play through one again as it sounded terrific. I was also rather relieved that my effect pedals all worked on 110 volts - I'd chosen the power adaptor as it specifically said that it worked on any voltage, but you never know do you? Seamus was well pleased (initially at least) with having a real Hammond Organ and Leslie speaker to use and Segs got a bass sound pretty much straight away; Dave had a bit of work to do before the drums were to his liking but everything looking good it was time for us to try a song... everything went horribly wrong immediately - the organ was flat by nearly a semitone. Attempts to rectify the situation (turning it off and on again - apparently there's not much else that you can do!) proved fruitless, the most likely cause seeming to be that we were running off a generator rather than mains electricity. Fortunately one of the other bands lent Seamus a keyboard and everything sounded good at last.

Here's where we stayed.
Nice isn't it?

There was just time to go to our (excellent) apartments to change and sample some locally distilled beverage courtesy of our very friendly hosts before getting back to the venue around half an hour before showtime. This was to be our first 'full' show following our 35 minute sets supporting The Alabama 3 last year - we played an hour-and-a-bit long set to an audience that increased in both size and appreciation as our show progressed. On the downside my guitar went off momentarily a few times before eventually going off completely - the pedalboard seemed to be the problem, which was cured by, you've guessed it, unplugging it and plugging it back in again. Then the vocal monitors stopped working. Bah! Despite the technical problems it was a great gig, and afterwards Pablo seemed particularly overwhelmed by our performance. Or maybe it was the free beer? 
With the next band starting their set in the background Segs, Dave and Molara gave a television interview; there's more alcohol and the promise of some Mexican food but Seamus and myself decide that it's been a long enough day and ask Al to drive us back to where we're staying. As we're getting into the van an enthusiastic young man stops us and says that we were amazing. It's good when that happens!


And we made the newspapers too -

I wonder what the headline says - any ideas?

Singing in the reign (sorry!)

So - what happened? Where did it all go wrong?

Well as far as The Last Jubilee Festival is concerned it all depends on who you believe. The Black Flag website raises a number of doubts about the promoters - but somehow I feel as though the truth won't emerge for a while yet. In the meantime I can't remember being as disappointed by a show being cancelled; the band was sounding terrific and we were all really looking forward to getting out in front of an audience. Still plans are afoot for Ruts D.C. to be on a stage somewhere as soon as possible - more news as and when I have it, as they say.
As for Cool Britannia - well to be honest it seems that tickets just aren't selling. Whether it's due to The Diamond Jubilee, the Olympic Games, lack of publicity or the fact that no one seems to have any money these days isn't clear, but we've got a great show and the band is playing well - I for one hope that the show rises again in the not-too-distant future.


In the meantime I found myself at Tropic At Ruislip on Sunday night to see The Members supported by The Jetsonics. As I arrived I bumped into Members bass player Chris who told me that he'd been trying to find a phone number for me as he was going to invite me along to play a few songs with the band. I'd have loved to have done this, but in a weird way this seems to sum the weekend up for me - I'd depped out a gig with The Upper Cut on Friday (I thought that I had a Cool Britannia show) and a Cool Britannia show on Saturday when I was due to be on Bath with Ruts D.C. (I'm told that former Awaken guitarist Pete did a fine job in both cases) and I could have played them both. It feels a bit like things are all going wrong at the moment... oh well, let's hope John Cooper Clarke was wrong for once and that things will get better. Still it was a good gig from The Members - Rat Scabies fitted in well (I'd not seen him with them before) and 'The Sound Of The Suburbs' sounded like the classic that we all remember it to be. The 4 or 5 songs that I caught by The Jetsonics sounded good, and Tropic At Ruislip remains an excellent venue that I really must make the effort to visit more regularly.


And having managed to avoid the Jubilee celebrations for pretty much the entire long weekend I joined my buddies The Upper Cut earlier today to play at a party in Windsor Street in Uxbridge. This all came together in the last few days, and I don't mind admitting that it was a difficult one from my point of view as I've never been a fan of The Royal Family and find the hysteria surrounding the current anniversary at best baffling and at worse offensive. However in the end I decided that I like playing the guitar more than I dislike the monarchy - and anyway, all my other gigs have been cancelled... sadly it rained for much of the afternoon which made it a rather perilous situation from our point of view as this picture taken by the venerable East shows -

The Upper Cut drive a lady in pink trousers into a frenzy with their wild and crazy brand of beat music.

- yes, that's right, we're in the middle of the road. Don't worry, they'd closed the street off... but as you can see we were playing in the open air and as we all know, electricity and water don't mix; by a couple of songs into our second set it was getting too dangerous to continue playing, which was a shame as it was a very enjoyable event to be part of. I for one was amazed how many people were there and how much fun they all seemed to be having (I really must cheer up mustn't I?!?) including the Balcony Shirts team (the shop is a few yards to my right in the above picture) and most if not all of the other shopkeepers. East told me later that a lady had got up out of her wheelchair and danced - could it be that we'd somehow performed a miracle and healed her? Or was she just recuperating from an injury and felt well enough to stand? I guess we'll never know...
After we'd stopped playing Andrew the vicar (that's St. Margaret's Church behind us) set 6 white doves free which somehow added to the rather surreal nature of the day, while we packed up and went to the Queen's Head. Well, it seemed like the thing to do... and talking of the Queen's head, is this a Banksy or isn't it? 

Queen bitch. Or something.

Either way, it made me smile.

The moon's a balloon

Fantastic news - Keith Moon has been approached to make an appearance with The Who at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. At last it's the reunion that we fans have been waiting for! I can only hope that doesn't prove to be a rather late April Fool joke, as The Who's manager Bill Curbishley doesn't appear to be taking it very seriously - either that or as this story shows he's trying to ruin everything by suggesting that Moonie has been a little difficult to contact for the last 30-odd years. Surely the Olympics committee concerned wouldn't have made the laughable, tragic, pathetic error of inviting a dead person to participate in their ghastly charade would they? Of course there is always a chance that it's actually an indication of spectacular incompetence on the part of the organisers - after all, it's hard to think that with someone like Jeremy Hunt on the team they could be anything less than excellent isn't it?

Mention of the man they (allegedly) call 'Corrible' remind me that it seems customary for an ill-informed politician or celebrity to put one or more of their feet squarely in their mouth around the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, and this year it's the turn of 'comedian' Alan Davies who clearly used every last iota of his intellect and wit when he observed that it 'gets on his tits' that Liverpool F.C. choose not to play on April 15th as a mark of respect to the 96 fans who died on that ill-fated day. He then went on to make several other similarly well-argued observations (click here to find out what they were and some of the reactions to them) and was then amazed when some people found them offensive. I don't know very much about him as a person but pretty much every time I've seen him on shows like 'Q.I.' I've thought him to be smug, self-obsessed and above all unfunny (not exactly a career move for somebody who appears to consider themselves to be a comedian) although I suppose that somebody must like him; I also believe that he's something of a football fan which to me make his comments all the more unfathomable. Anyone with even the remotest interest in the game is aware of the ongoing sensitivity of anything to do with Hillsborough; also surely the point here is that Liverpool F.C. choose not to play on that day i.e. it's their way of honouring the people who died and the others who were effected by the tragedy, and as such that should be respected. Apparently Davies has a show booked at The Liverpool Empire in September - now that should be a very interesting evening, and probably quite an easy one to get a ticket for...

In the meantime much evidence of last weekend's Department S show has surfaced by the magic of the Internet - click here for a YouTube interview with guitarist Mike followed by 'My Coo Ca Choo' (the interview explains why that song is in the set!) as well as these four more clips, while the evocatively named 'Peek-A-Boo' magazine features these photos taken at the show. All good stuff, although I might wear a different hat next time!

Time for another F.B.I. Band gig on Saturday night, at Harry and Clemmie's wedding reception at Boodles Club in Central London. With a membership that has included people like The Duke Of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and David Niven this is another of those 'they-don't-normally-let-people-like-me-into-places-like-this' gigs that your humble narrator participates in from time to time; these generally end with me uttering oaths and curses in these hallowed pages followed by me suggesting insurrection and class war at the earliest possible opportunity. To be honest as an evening this one went along similar lines to all the other ones (i.e. a bunch of toffs take virtually no notice of us until some of the more drunken among them accidentally start dancing recklessly and a bit too close to the band for comfort; suddenly loads of them start doing the same in case they were missing out on something and the show ends with scenes of general mayhem and them barking their demands for more in the general direction of the band before lurching off in the general direction of the bar) so I don't feel as though there's too much to say that I haven't said on similar occasions. However the band (Tony on vocals, Richard on keyboards, Mark on drums and Jon on bass - more about the horn players in a minute) did manage a drink in the nearby Red Lion before the show which was most enjoyable; at the club I braved a look in the 'Members Requirements' book (essentially suggestions and / or complaints) which regularly featured Henry Blofeld musing on subjects as diverse as digestive biscuits (he wanted McVitie's rather than the non-descript brand that he'd been served) and who he sat next to at breakfast (he wasn't too happy about being seated next to a stranger) among other similarly life-threatening incidents. But probably the oddest incident occurred shortly before 9 pm, the allotted time for our first set - Jim the trumpet player arrived with minutes to spare (as usual! How does he do that?!?) and asked where Ian the Sax man was; when Tony said that he wasn't doing this show and he believed a dep had been arranged Jim sat down with the words 'oh, is this the one that he can't do?', pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and began dialling. Within a few minutes he said 'Howard will be here around 10.30' than asked if there was any food... with no sign of any guest or indeed the bride or groom we were led down to the staff canteen where food was indeed available, before going back upstairs just as a chap wearing a saxophone strolled in, introduced himself as Howard ('I've been doing ''Singin' In The Rain'' around the corner') before blowing a few notes to check if his microphone was working correctly. We began 'Soul Man' a few minutes later to an empty room; it took 4 or 5 songs before the dangerous dancing started - and you know the rest...

And yesterday saw an all-day Cool Britannia rehearsal at Ruff Rockers in Uxbridge. We'd all been a bit disappointed with last month's Southend session as we felt that we didn't sound as good as we might have, but fortunately it all went better this time with everyone playing well and pretty much all the songs sounding like they should. With not long to go before the opening night this can only be a good thing!

In the meantime I'm off to play 'Live At Leeds' (and indeed to watch the only footage of that incredible show) and to wish that I'd seen The Who with Keith Moon behind the kit. After all, that opening ceremony story surely must have been a not-particularly-good-taste joke - mustn't it?