You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish

It was straight back to basics after the euphoria of Thursday night, with a short notice Upper Cut gig at Buckinghamshire Golf Club on Friday evening. We played at Grant's 40th birthday party last March - I received a call a few days ago from him asking if we'd be interested in playing on Friday at a party at the club, and with none of us gigging elsewhere the only possible answer was 'yes'... it turned out to be a most enjoyable evening, as did the next night when Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The King's Arms in Harefield. It's usually a lively night there, and this was no exception with the band playing well and Al on fine form as ever.

The Move have for me always been a criminally underrated band. I can just about remember them from back in the day although I was very young, but in the early '70s Wizzard and The Electric Light Orchestra made regular appearances on 'Top Of The Pops' and both big favourites of mine at the time. When I found that that Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne had both been in The Move I backtracked and (re)discovered such wonderful records as 'Fire Brigade' and 'Blackberry Way' alongside less well-known tracks like 'Kilroy Was Here' and 'Cherry Blossom Clinic'. Great stuff in my not-so-humble opinion, which was why the chance to see them play at Tropic At Ruislip on Sunday evening was definitely one  not to be missed. Support came from Mods And Sods, whose 40-odd minute set of '60s covers warmed the crowd up for the main event; opening with 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow' The Move played a fine set that included 'Brontosaurus', 'Flowers In the Rain' and 'California Man' and reminded everyone present how many classic songs they recorded and released and just what a great band they were and indeed are. Original members Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton told some excellent stories and it was a great evening all round, which was only soured a bit for me by a rather odd moment that happened to me during Mods And Sods's set; their guitarist was tuning up (and having a bit of trouble doing so) when a 'friend' of mine (I use the term loosely - it's someone I've encountered here and there over the years and who finds himself at this particular venue on a regular basis) came over and said 'he's got the same approach to tuning as you - non-existent'. Because it was hard to hear him (well there was somebody tuning a guitar in the background!) I asked him to repeat it - when he said it again I realised that I basically had three choices :- 

(a) wallop him
(b) say something suitably rude and / or unpleasant and then wallop him
(c) ignore him and hope that he'd go away

As I decided that I had no real want to be banned from the venue for causing a punch up (after all, he might have hit me back! And on a more serious note, I also didn't want to risk injuring my hands...) I, for better or worse. went for (c) although typing this now at least part of me wishes that I'd gone for (a) or indeed (b). Ah well - there's always next time... but I've had a few odd comments lately, mostly sneaky putdowns (this isn't the first reference to me not being able to tune my guitar, for example) from people who really should know better. They wouldn't be jealous of little old me now would they? After all next Friday while my 'friend' will no doubt be all but suffocating in his own cynicism in Ruislip I'll be gigging in front of several thousand people with Ruts D.C. in Serbia... and as I came off stage at The 12 Bar Club last night after joining Segs to play 'Babylon's Burning' with The Duel at the last of the FFRUK Reggae Punk Monday nights and went back to talking to the very nice young lady that I'd just met at the bar I wondered how much better things might have gone for me if I'd learned how to tune up... 

'A working class hero is something to be...'

I've just heard that Bob Crow has died - shame. He seemed to me to be a decent man who stood up for the rights of working class people, which in these days of evil presidentes is something that should always be applauded don't you think? I've just heard that two-faced clown Boris Johnson describe him as 'a man of character', a term that could never be applied to The Mayor Of London. A sad loss.

The second Gypie Mayo tribute gig took place at Surrey Blues Club on Friday evening - house band Game On started proceedings with a half hour or so of blues standards (enlivened no end by their guitarist playing violin on one number) before The Band Of Sceptics took to the stage. With frontman / guitarist Pete Sargeant in fine form their varied set included an excellently jazzy version of 'Only Happy When It Rains' next to the likes of 'The Pusher' and 'For What It's Worth'. Once again they invited me to join them for 'Gimme Dat Harp Boy', and once again they then asked me to stay for the rest of the set - Rick Danko's 'Java Blues' (also recorded by Dr. Feelgood with Gypie on guitar) and 'Dream Within A Dream' by the latter-day Gypie-featuring line-up of The Yardbirds. All good stuff, and it set the scene for a Flying Squad performance that I felt was a bit better than last week's Ruislip show. Pete joined us to play harmonica on 'Ridin' On The L&N' and slide guitar on 'Back In the Night', and we once again finished the evening with 'Killing Floor'. A good night at an excellent club.

Saturday night saw a rare occurrence - a short notice Upper Cut gig. We were only asked to play at The Jameson in West Kensington a few days earlier - with the Hammersmith Roundabout teeming with Stranglers fans (they were playing at The Odeon) we found the venue with surprising ease, and were set up and ready to play in no time. It's always a bit depressing when the staff are telling you to play quietly before you've even picked your instruments up, not least because as we'd not played there before we had little if any idea of what constituted playing quietly in that particular place; needless to say it didn't take long before they were asking us to turn it down. Bah! However by the end of our first set there was a fair bit of dancing, and with more people arriving all the time our second set turned out to be good fun with the band playing well and the audience responding well. As we were leaving Gavin the guv'nor said that he'd be in touch about a return booking, which I for one would not have predicted at the start of our show It just goes to show how little I know doesn't it?

And last night it was back to The 12 Bar Club for another Reggae Punk Monday which featured among others the astonishingly-named Dogshite. I must say that they were nowhere near as bad as their name might have suggested, although I suppose you could argue that it would be quite hard for them to actually be that bad... in the meantime Cadiz Music supremo Richard England and his assistant Blaise joined myself and Segs in a worrying amount of drinking - well, a worrying amount for a Monday night. Actually it was a worrying amount for any night, judging by how my head feels this morning... 

Reggae Punk Mondays at The 12 Bar Club

Just a quick reminder that Ruts D.C. are playing the band's first ever acoustic show this coming Monday 10th February at The 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street London. The Duel and Freedom Faction are also on the bill with Segs is DJ-ing until the early hours of Tuesday morning; there's one of those new-fangled Facebook 'Event' pages dedicated to it that you can find here if you so desire, and it's the first of thirteen Reggae Punk Mondays at the venue promoted by FFRUK. The whole thing has the makings of a classic evening and tickets are only £3 - so what are you waiting for? See you down the front!