Hey Ho, Let's Go!

And so it goes on - much of the last week was spent at The Music Complex in Deptford rehearsing for this coming Wednesday's Joe Strummer film show at Koko. Songs were learned then discarded, re-learned then re-discarded (does that last word exist? Answers on a postcard please, usual address...) and we're still not sure who's singing which song. It looks like it'll be an early start on Wednesday then... but the band is sounding good - joining myself and fellow Ruts D.C. member Dave Ruffy (that's how I got the job!) are Tim Slade on bass (he plays for Gary Numan among others) and Tom Edwards on guitar (he works with Adam Ant - I'm really do feel like a junior partner here!) and even though I say so myself we've made a good job of things. It goes without saying that I'm looking forward to Wednesday - but I've said it anyway!

I was supposed to be playing at a wedding last night but it got cancelled (our show that is, not the wedding. Well I don't think that got cancelled!) so rather than do my already-depped-out Big Al gig (I don't like that thing where band members 'take back' a gig because they become available - do you?) I went to see The Ramonas at The 100 Club. Support came from the always-worth-seeing Louise Distras who appeared with a band rather than as her usual solo self. For me her voice worked better in this format - it's sometimes a bit too much for me over just an acoustic guitar, but she sounded great here. Afterwards she told me that she's hoping to concentrate more on group shows rather than solo, so let's hope hope that it works out for her. And The Ramonas were great too - a 28 song set (I wasn't counting, Chloe Ramona said it at the end, honest!) that featured many of the best Ramones songs played at a suitably breakneck pace to a healthily-sized crowd, all of whom loved ever minute of it. A splendid evening.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the first Price show. 30 years! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun eh? Actually it flies whether you're having fun or not... we were hoping to play a show this weekend - sadly that fell through but hopefully we'll be performing somewhere soon. And what better way for me to celebrate this (ahem!) momentous occasion than by going to see The Who? So that's what I'm doing, as they're playing at The O2 Arena tonight - but first I'm off to Abbey Road Studios. Yes, that Abbey Road Studios. Strange days indeed...

Garden of serenity

Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of The Ramones, has died. It may well be something of a cliche but I'm going to say it anyway - The Ramones's first album changed everything. Well, it did for me and others like me. I remember hearing the 'Blitzkrieg Bop' single for the first time and I can honestly say that I'd never heard anything like it before. (I had a similar experience with 'New Rose' by The Damned a few months later) I'm certainly not one to say that all mid-70s rock music was tired and uninspired, but as I recall there were far too many badly-dressed people singing half-hour long songs about goblins - the time was right for change, and The Ramones were definitely at the forefront of that change. For many they remain the definitive punk rock band, with their extraordinary stripped-down approach inspiring a lot of bands and musicians to take a similar view on how rock music could and indeed should be played. Have a look at this magnificent footage recorded at London's Rainbow Theatre on New Year's Eve 1977, the night their seminal 'It's Alive!' album was recorded - that, my friends, is actual rock 'n' roll. R.I.P. Tommy Ramone - Hey Ho, Let's Go, to heaven...

In the meantime I played two gigs with two different bands this weekend, both at private parties. At events such as these I always remind myself that the guests are not there to see a band but to see their friends and family, and as such it can often appear as though they're all but ignoring the musical entertainment. Mind you sometimes they are! On Friday night The Repertoire Dogs played at a 60th birthday party at Mapledurham Golf Club. I was depping for regular guitarist Mick Ralphs who was away in America with Bad Company (talk about getting a better offer!) and since it was a warm night the club had all the bar doors open. When we went on for our first set at 9.15 most people were outside on the patio, and many of them stayed there although a few came in to listen and to watch. With bacon sandwiches and chips on offer more were in for our second set, and by the end pretty much all the guests were up and dancing. Not so the following

The Blistering Buicks equipment,
sneering at the threat of rain
from the safety of the gazebo.

evening, when Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played a garden party (apparently there was no event, they just fancied a party) near Woking. Initial confusion as to which side of the swimming pool we were to set up on gave way to discussions along the lines of 'it looks like it could rain so shouldn't we perhaps be under that gazebo over there?' After all, we wouldn't be too close to the inflatable beach volleyball court, and we'd be nowhere near the bungee run... eventually we set up under said gazebo and played two sets to initial curiosity, general indifference and, somewhat inevitably, complaints at the end that we weren't playing an encore even though no one had actually asked for one. Still it wasn't a bad performance (and it didn't rain!) although having not played in the band for the best part of a month I forgot a few too many cues than I would have liked. Time for some revision before our next gig methinks.

And talking of next gigs, mine couldn't be a greater contrast to these two, as it's with The London Sewage Company this Thursday at The 100 Club supporting Menace and The Morgellons; after that it's three shows with Ruts D.C., details of which can be found here on the band's Facebook page as well as a last minute appearance (I only got the call yesterday!) depping with The Sex Pistols Experience at Guilfest on Saturday. Great stuff!

Boys (and girls) will be boys...

Well I didn't play any shows myself last weekend (or at least I wasn't intending to...) but I did see a couple of bands :-

Friday night at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge and a young band called Girl In the Garden take to the stage. I'd seen a poster for them in the venue the previous weekend and Sam had said that he'd seen them and they were good so Pete, him and myself decided to go along. Sam was correct, they were good, very tight and well-rehearsed - something that we all agreed we were not even close to being at their age! I was a bit disappointed when they played a few cover versions as their own material was very good but I suspect it was to allow them to play in places like this where a lot of the audience want to hear familiar material. They reminded me a bit of The Arctic Monkeys (no bad thing) although I must say that overall I was very struck by what good players they all are - I suppose that in these days of guitar institutes and online tuition everybody is a virtuoso now. Is it just me or does it make them sound a bit, for want of a better term, grown up? It'll be interesting to see where they go next. 

Rockstock at The Halfway House in Barnes couldn't have been more different than the previous night's band. They feature the ever-excellent Pete Parks on guitar, Andy Heart on bass and vocals and the brilliantly-named Ivan Hoe (you don't know how much I hope that's his real name!) on drums and they offer what I guess could best be called 'classic rock covers'. Unlike Girl In The Garden this wasn't exactly a slick performance, being basically Pete and Ivan having a go at whichever song Andy called up. Well either that or the rehearsal studio was closed... that said they attempted some very ambitious material (as I was to discover!) and they mostly pulled it off, albeit with the odd wrong turn here and there. In the interval Pete asked me if I fancied doing a couple of numbers with them - somehow I found myself attempting 'Pinball Wizard' and (gulp!) 'Stairway To Heaven' (whatever happened to a bit of 12 bar rock 'n'roll eh lads?!?) and all things considered I didn't make too bad a job of them, although as usual I wouldn't have mentioned it here if it had...

Time for the first studio rehearsal (as opposed to getting together around one of our houses) for Back To Zero, at Soundlab Studios in Loughton. In the course of the session we looked at seven songs including both sides of their 1979 single 'Your Side Of Heaven' / 'Back To Back', and without wishing to sound too big headed they all sounded pretty good to me. It certainly sounded good for our first time in a studio together, although I guess that proves the worth of our earlier meetings. There's still a lot of work to do before our gigs in May but talking to Andy and Sam in the pub afterwards (Squirrel sadly couldn't stick around) we all agreed that this is a band that we're all getting really excited about. Excellent!

The Friday just gone (March 1st in case you're getting confused - I know I am!) saw Tropic At Ruislip invaded by punk rockers (mostly middle-aged punk rockers, but punk rockers nonetheless) for an evening with The Pistols and The Ramonas. I'd been looking forward to seeing The Ramonas for a while as I'd heard good things about them, and I must say that they didn't disappoint. I suppose an all girl Ramones tribute band is only ever going to be a bit of a one line gag - but it's a good gag, and the girls do a fine job of emulating Da Bruddas, even if the shouts of 'One-Two-Three-Four!' are in a rather higher pitch than I remember them. And The Pistols were great too - it's always interesting to see a band that I've recently depped in, and the excellent Steve Tones was in fine form throughout as were the rest of the band. Paul / Rotten did however break rule number 1 in the live music performance handbook when he decided to take the mickey out of Phil the soundman - I suppose Phil could have chosen to retaliate with a wall of feedback so the resulting silence from Paul's microphone was probably the best option, at least from the audience point of view. It was great to see plenty of people at the gig too - a fine night all round.

Saturday night I depped in The Atlantic Soul Machine at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace. I played with the band on Christmas Eve which must have gone well since they asked me back (!) and although there wasn't chance to get together for a rehearsal this time the show was if anything better than my first outing with them. We were joined by John O'Leary for a version of Howlin' Wolf's 'Who's Been Talkin'' ('It's on the 'Rocking Chair' album' said John cheerily, which only added to the confusion of the band members that hadn't heard the song) and started the second set with the previously unrehearsed 'Ooga-Boo-Ga-Loo' by The Jazz Crusaders (no,I'd not heard it before either) both of which could have gone horribly wrong but thankfully sounded good. There was much dancing and merriment from the enthusiastic audience, and everyone seemed to be happy with the show which is always a relief from my point of view as a sub-sti-tute. And it was good to see Pete Feenstra again too - he remains as tireless as ever in his promoting of live music in London, which can only be a good thing for all concerned. 

And talking of seeing bands that I've recently depped in, last night I saw The Good Old Boys at The Brushwood Inn (it'll always be The Turks Head to me!) in Hillingdon. Bill's depping for Nick on bass but other than that it was The A-Team of Alan on vocals, Pete and Simon on guitars and Hud on drums; with an early start in prospect I got there around 7.40 pm to find them already into their first set which sounded good if a bit loud for the room. (God I must be getting old!) Add to that the fact that they were mostly playing to lads who had been there all afternoon for the Arsenal vs. Chelsea match and so weren't too interested in the music and you've got the recipe for a somewhat patchy first set. Things improved considerably in the second half not least because more of the band's followers had arrived by then, and by the last few songs it was definitely a case of 'all's well that end's well' - at least it was until the aforementioned lads decided to get a bit too boisterous with each other and a small set-to ensued. It's always a shame when that happens, and it's definitely a shame when there's a band on as it might put people off from supporting live music at the pub in the future. Let's hope not, as the pub is only just starting to put groups on and the area could definitely do with a venue.

Right - this week sees Ruts D.C. play in Newport and Bristol, Wilko Johnson's farewell gigs and another Back To Zero rehearsal. A good few days in prospect then...

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.

'And oh I don't know why...'

No gigs for your humble narrator this week, which is not a good situation for someone who's attempting to make a living out of playing the guitar. Bah! I can't remember a December that was this quiet... anyway here are a few YouTube clips that I've seen lately - after all, who wants to play the guitar when you can watch other people doing it? (Well, actually, I do... which reminds me, The Uppercut play an 'it's-nearly-Christmas' gig at The Load of Hay this coming Sunday - if you're in the area why not come along?)

When I was a lad there was a band called The Clash. They were very good. Very good indeed. In fact I've been known to say that one of the best things about being old is that you were able to see The Clash play. (On bad days I've been known to say that one of the ONLY good things about being old is that you were able to see The Clash, but that's another story...) Some amazing film of the band at The New York Palladium in 1979 has recently surfaced - originally silent, it has been painstakingly synced up with a bootleg audio recording of the show, the full story of which can be found on The Clash Blog along with the footage which is also on YouTube here. It's a famous show in the history of the band as it's the night that Paul Simonon smashed up his bass guitar, as immortalised on the cover of their 'London Calling' album. While it's not the greatest quality it captures the fearsome power of the band at their brilliant best, and I for one wish there was more of it, not least for the rare sight of Mick Jones playing 'English Civil War' on acoustic rather than electric guitar.

(Incidentally if you've never seen the electric version then here is - I told you they were very good...)

If you've ever been mad enough to attempt to learn to play a musical instrument then you'll know that it can be a very rewarding experience; you'll also know that it can be extremely frustrating, not least when you know what you're supposed to be playing but can't quite manage to get the sound out of the instrument. My good friend and Awaken guitarist Pete sent me a link for a clip of 'The Angriest Guitarist in the World' - it seems as though he's known as The Treeman and has been getting quite a lot of attention on YouTube. I of course have never heard of him before and therefore can heartily recommend this clip of the man himself in action - the moment at 2 min 18 sec where an edit cuts to our man holding an acoustic guitar that's being held together with what looks like masking tape is well worth savouring. There's a second clip here, and various other links to actual songs (as opposed to violent sweary rants) including the one that he's attempting to get right in the first clip can also be found - I'm not sure that it's not all a little bit contrived here and there, but it's certainly very entertaining.

I found this extraordinary clip of an English language class at The Sullivan School Kindergarten in South Korea on the ever-excellent Monkey Picks blog; I wish this sort have thing had gone on at our school, although of course when I was their age The Ramones were still several years in the future. I guess we could have had a teacher with an electric guitar leading us all in Beatles songs? Anyway it's a brilliant clip, especially the bit where the kids at the front can't wait to sing 'third verse, different from the first' and get back to the pogoing... and here are Da Brudders themselves playing the same song 'Judy Is A Punk' on The Don Kirshner's Rock Concert TV show in 1977. Analysis is futile my friends, other than to say something along the lines of 'that's rock 'n' roll'...

More is more

This is my 400th blog posting!

As befits something as self-indulgent (and indeed self-obsessive) as the unprompted writing of a seemingly limitless series of missives about yourself (ME ME ME IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!) I thought this would be a good moment to include this page from 'Vive La Rock!', the first issue of which also includes articles on the likes of The Ruts, Motorhead and The Ramones among others, as well as this rather splendid revue of T.V. Smith at The Load of Hay. It's all good stuff, but given this excerpt it's fairly obvious that I would say that...

Let's set the controls for number 500 shall we?

And if you're anywhere near Windsor Street in Uxbridge this Saturday 30th October then why not set your controls for a visit to the Balcony Shirts shop, which opened exactly one year ago - there might well be a bargain or two to be had, and there's a fair chance of some live music from various members of staff. Acoustic guitar in a t-shirt shop? Anything's possible...

More sad news - Ari Up from The Slits has died. I well remember the outrage that they caused, four (un)typical girls daring to call themselves musicians in the face of the 'they-can-hardly-play' / 'they're-awful-even-for-women' opposition from the grown up's who preferred to listen to 'real' music. I saw about half their set at The Lyceum in late 1978 when they were supporting The Clash, when their defiant, dub-powered mischief-making was both embraced and rejected in more-or-less equal measures by the Clash-hungry hoards - when I said to my school friends that I'd seen them and they were nowhere near as bad as most of them thought that they were most of them were horrified. I just decided that they'd grown up already... I bet they didn't like Norman Wisdom either, but I remember laughing at his onscreen antics when I was a lad. Another mischief maker, and he's gone now too. Shame.

And it was a shame that there weren't more people in The Directors Arms in Borehamwood on Saturday when The Upper Cut gave an energetic show to a handful of diehards including 2 lads who alternated between dancing wildly (and occasionally just a little bit too close to the band) and playing pinball (yes, one of them did ask for the song!) while most of the audience sat at the bar listening. It can be somewhat soul-destroying to play to an almost empty room, but I thought we didn't let it get us down and as a result played a lot better than we might have under the circumstances. Paul the guv'nor was philosophical, saying that he was trying live music and would 'see how it goes from now until Christmas' as well as promising us a return date if he continues booking bands - he used to run The Heath Tavern in Hillingdon back in the dim and distant past (Terry, Roger and myself played there a few times when we were in The Informers back in the 1990's 'though he wasn't running it then) and seemed like a nice chap so let's hope it works out for him.

And it was shame that there weren't a few more people at The Load of Hay last night, where Zarbo's spirited performance went down well with the dozen or so people watching. They're a difficult act to categorise (never a bad thing methinks - check the 'movies' section of their website to see what I mean) but Andy and Paul play everything live (i.e. no backing tracks) and produce an implausible amount of sound for 2 people. It's all original material too, (apart from a version of 'Personal Jesus' and the closing number 'Old Man River') which is a good thing to see. Talking to them afterwards they seem quite self-critical about their act - neither feels as though they've really 'got going' yet - so it'll be interesting to see where they take it from here.

The Upper Cut will be taking it to The Dolphin in Uxbridge this coming Friday evening - that should ensure a bleary shop Saturday for your humble narrator - and I found out today that Dave Sharp is playing in the ''80's Rocked' show that I mentioned in the last posting and that I'd have been playing in if I'd been able to learn the songs in time. I'd love to - no make that love to - have been playing alongside him. If you can make it along to our gig it'd be good to see you - I could do with something to cheer me up...

St. Elsewhere

I'm sure Windsor was quite a lively place on St. George's Day - Uxbridge certainly was, if you count gangs of large shaven-headed men cheering drunkenly as they wended their way from pub to pub as 'lively'. Still Balcony Shirts did a roaring trade in printing ENGLAND on white polo shirts for quite a few of the afore-mentioned shaven-headed men so perhaps I shouldn't complain - well, not too much anyway, and I'm sure their Queen (and indeed St. George) was very proud of them... when we got to Windsor we saw someone dressed as a dragon in the car park near the theatre (hmm...) and the souvenir shops had noticeably less Union Jack flags (isn't that the flag of The United Kingdom rather than England? Just a thought, as they say...) and t-shirts than they'd had earlier in the week so I'm sure they were happy.

The theatre was certainly a lively place during our show - a much larger audience saw us play what for me was the best show so far. I was back on the white Telecaster and spent the first few numbers wondering why my guitar sound wasn't quite as raucous as the previous evening - maybe that's why I went into the middle section of 'Soul Man' a verse earlier than I should have, causing much amusement for Squirrel standing next to me and Pete in the wings. Bah! Oh and Phil the soundman distinguished himself by playing The Ramones, The New York Dolls and The Clash over the P.A. after our soundcheck - I always knew he was a man of taste!

Two nearly-sold-out shows today... can't wait!