Preston... and on... and on...

'Why? Because Krakatoa's
not erupting?!?'

Have you seen that scene in Fawlty Towers where the deaf woman complains about the view from her hotel room? (Just in case you don't, here it is - a classic!) She'd have had a birthday if she'd stayed in the room that I shared with Seamus on Saturday night. Mind you it's a bit unfair putting this photo here - if I'd have turned around I could have taken a picture of the ornamental water feature that sat slightly awkwardly between our two beds...

So far, so sarcastic - but how had I got there?

I met the van at 9am on Friday at Driving Me Crazy in Brentford. As I got there my new friend Dawn was just reversing the vehicle into place - when I commented on her New Model Army shirt she revealed that she works for them and then offered to put me on the guest list for their show at The Forum in November. Result!
If I now tell you that we arrived at 53 Degrees in Preston just before 6.30pm after a journey that should have taken around 4 hours you will have some idea of how our day went. Why does this country completely fall apart when it rains? That said although the journey was long it wasn't by any means totally unenjoyable, as Seamus told some hilarious stories about his time playing with Paul Weller (it's best that they're not repeated here, believe me!) matched by Dave coming out with a seemingly endless succession of bad jokes among the many amusing diversions. It was all more fun than it looks written down here, honest!

Backstage passes for the gigs,
and the 'short but sweet'
Newcastle setlist.

When we finally arrived at the venue we were met by the very helpful stage crew who helped us carry our equipment in. Bass and guitar amplifiers were provided by first-on-the-bill band Bug who feature Louder Than War scribe Phil Thompson on guitar and vocals; The Notsensibles are also on the bill and given that we were due to arrive at 3 o'clock there is shall we say a certain amount of urgency to get us soundchecked, but as always Nick our soundman pulled things together in no time. There's just time to get our merchandise table set up and to say hello to Richie from Biteback before Bug take to the stage at 8 o'clock - the room is filling up and they go down well with all concerned. I thought that they sounded great but Phil's a mate so perhaps I shouldn't say that?!? The Notsensibles single 'I Am the Bishop' was produced by Paul Fox (yes, I do have a copy!) and both Segs and Dave are big fans of the song - the band sounded more-or-less how I remember them from back in the day i.e. not too serious and therefore good fun. We all felt that our show took a while to get going, probably due to the journey taking more of a toll on us that we perhaps realised at the time - that said we may have just been a bit overcritical, as everybody I spoke to afterwards seemed to love it. The customer is always right...
With everything packed away it was back to The Holiday Inn where thankfully the bar was still open. Phil from Bug joined us with his wife, brother and mum (they'd all been at the gig, I don't think that he has them with him all the time!) and drinks were drunk, stories were told and the day ended on a much more optimistic note than I for one felt as though it might when we were on the endless M6. Good! 

Saturday started in a leisurely manner, with breakfast finishing at 11am and the band leaving for Newcastle at midday. Our journey goes well and we're checking in at The Ramada Encore in no time where the food is good and the mood is relaxed. We're playing at the North West Calling festival at The O2 Academy where we're sharing a dressing room with The U.K. Subs who are on after us with Sham 69 topping the bill. I meet Subs guitar man Jet in the afore-mentioned room, and since we've both got our instruments handy a spot of guitar nerdery takes place, much to the horror of other band members and onlookers. Great stuff!

The doorway that
leads to adventure -
 or in this case,
an in depth discussion of
electric guitar intonation
and fret wire gauge.

I went for a walk out into the venue to catch a song or two from Steve Ignorant and Paranoid Visions and to meet up with my mate Ross who lives locally, he used to roadie for Jimi Hendrix tribute band Little Wing back in the '90s when I saw them a few times, not least because they had Upper Cut bassman Terry Peaker in their ranks. He always said that he was a big Ruts fan so it was great to be able to invite him along as I hadn't seen him since Terry's 60th birthday bash back in December 2011. No time for a chat now though as we're on in 15 minutes, and even though amplifiers are provided (that's why we didn't take ours along the night before) there's a mad rush to get everything set up in time - we just about manage it and play a blazing 40 minute set to the increasing approval of the increasingly animated audience. We start our last song 'Babylon's Burning' and the place goes wild - but the song goes wrong and Segs stops us during the first verse, confusion reigns but the crowd carries on singing, we restart it and finish to tumultuous applause. A great gig - I wish we could have played for longer but sometimes 'short and sweet' is the way to go, and this was perhaps one of those times. 
With our gear all packed away it's off out front to watch a couple of songs from The U.K. Subs (who sounded great - apparently their soundman just left our settings up on the mixing desk!) before joining our driver Mark behind the merch desk which slightly oddly is up on the second floor. You can't see the stage from there but business is brisk,with plenty of positive comments from many-a punter. Tony who saw us in Stockton back in March shows us his new Ruts D.C. tattoo and local record dealer Pod presents Segs and myself with compilation DVDs of old Ruts footage as Sham 69 blast though their set in the background - it's been a great evening. The rest of the band take the van back to the hotel while Segs and myself pack the merchandise away then take a taxi through the Newcastle streets which are full of people - as we stop to let an endless stream of them cross the road the driver asks us if there's anything we need. The evening then takes a slightly surreal turn when offers us some Viagra - which we decline in case you were wondering - then when we get to the hotel there's a St. Pauli-themed hen party at the bar. I'll leave you to do your own punchline...

The next day's journey back to London goes well if somewhat blearily - I get home and fall asleep for a couple of hours before getting on Skype and participating in episode 128 of the Music Scene Investigation podcast. Watching it now I'm not entirely sure that I was awake during the broadcast either - have a look here and see what you think. And I should perhaps have had an early night on Monday after a day in the shop but instead journeyed up to London where despite guitar amplifier problems during their first couple of songs The Duel were in fine form at their Madame Jojo's Monday night residency. 

And there's more on the horizon from Ruts D.C. this weekend as we're playing at Sub89 in Reading this Friday 13th September. Unlucky for some? Hopefully not for us...

Three's company

I have just got hold of the new 4-track EP by Eight Rounds Rapid - you know, the band that supported Wilko Johnson at his farewell shows last month and who feature his son Simon on razor-sharp guitar - and it is, to use a technical term, bloody great. The item in question can be purchased from their website here - I suppose it's unlikely that I for one would have heard of the band without the Wilko connection (and it's very difficult for me to keep that out of the equation) but I genuinely think that they're a very good band well worthy of attention. Have a listen and see what you think... and talking of the mighty Mr. Johnson he has announced that following a guest appearance with Madness last Friday he has played his last live show. It's weird isn't it - since the announcement that he is suffering from terminal cancer he's played some extraordinary farewell shows, and I bet I wasn't the only person kidding themselves that 'he'll be alright after all'? You can see him playing with the band here and read the story here - let's hope he enjoys his time in retirement.

Last Friday saw a launch party for the new Ruts D.C. album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' at The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham. There was a certain amount of confusion as to whether the band would be playing or not - Dave and Segs were always going to be DJ-ing, The Cracked Actors and the Black Bombers were always going to be providing live musical entertainment, I was (ahem!) always going to be behind the merchandise table with CDs and T-shirts a-plenty, but it was never actually advertised as a Ruts D.C. gig... a few days earlier I had a phone conversation with Segs which went along the lines of 'so if we were to borrow some drums and amps and play as a three-piece, what songs could we play?' Good question! 
My good friend Big Andy (who is!) joined me behind the merchandise desk while The Black Bombers (great garage-y rock'n'roll, definitely worth keeping an eye on) and The Cracked Actors (reggae/ska stuff, good but they played for a bit too long for me) did their stuff and Dave and Segs span some tracks in between times. We'd had a 'so what songs could we play then?' chat in the dressing room earlier in the evening and had come up with a rough plan - in the event we played (from memory so I might be wrong) 'Whatever We Do' / 'It Was Cold' / 'Backbiter' / 'Dope For Guns' / Staring At The Rude Boys' / 'In A Rut' and an encore of 'Babylon's Burning' to scenes of not-inconsiderable audience mayhem. Segs and Dave told a couple of very funny stories, I met Roland Link who wrote 'Kicking Up A Racket', a biography of Stiff Little Fingers and who is currently writing a book on The Ruts / Ruts D.C. and everyone I spoke to thought the evening was a great success. I think it was too! 

On Saturday evening The Upper Cut journeyed to Welwyn Garden City to play at Grant and Rachel's joint 40th birthday party at Panshanger Golf Club. It had been a while since I'd played at an event such as this - I always remind myself that the live entertainment is only a small part of the evening (after all, it's the person or people that the party is being thrown for that should be the centre of attention don't you think?) and that for that reason it's not a 'gig' as such, more a gathering of family and friends that happens to have a disco and a live band. I suppose this is all to make me feel better when the band is all but ignored which is something that so often happens at nights like this - we weren't ignored this time but you could feel people wondering why we were there and why the disco wasn't happening all evening. That said we did get some nice comments from a few people and there was no outright hostility so overall it was definitely a 'more-pluses-that-minuses' sort of evening - and the band hadn't played for a while so it was good to all get together again.

Sunday morning rehearsals seem to be the way of things with Back To Zero, and this week it was my turn for a local one - Andy, Sam, Squirrel and myself amassed outside RnR Studios in Uxbridge at 10am and waited...and waited... and waited... eventually a sheepish lad turned up to let us in mumbling about 'forgetting to put the clocks forward'. Well, I guess we've all done it haven't we? Over the next four hours we ran through all the material that we're intending to play at next month's gigs, and I have to say that it's all sounding rather fine. There's often a moment in rehearsals when you stop sounding like a band of musicians and start sounding like a 'band' - ours was somewhere on Sunday morning. There's still a keyboard player to add and one of the original singers is going to guest on a few songs but as it stands at the moment Back To Zero are already sounding good to my ears.
After a couple of late nights and an early morning I spent a fair bit of Sunday afternoon asleep - I'm sure that didn't used to happen when I was younger? Hmmm... anyway at 8.30 in the evening I was using the magic of Skype to talk to Rich, Tom and Ian of Music Scene Investigation, and from 9-10pm we all participated in the latest podcast of said programme. We had three good songs to review this time (that's not always the case!) as you can tell if you watch the show here - I still think that song 3 was the best don't you?
Of course after being asleep half the day I was wide awake at 10 o'clock in the evening, which meant that I was able to pop down to The Crown And Treaty where an all-day festival of original (as opposed to cover) bands was taking place. When I got there a rather scary black metal band were playing (sadly I don't know their name - incidentally if they ever read this and think 'hang on a minute, we're not black metal' than I apologise profusely!) and I'd arranged to meet my old mates Pete (still recovering from last week's SLF gig) Grant and Sam with whom I cowered at the back (it wasn't much quieter there to be honest!) before moving nearer to the stage to watch Frowser. I last saw them many (15?) years ago when I remember them being very impressive although it wasn't really my type of thing - Grant is a bit of a fan, Sam is less convinced and Pete missed them as he decided he'd had enough to drink and went home. I must say he did look as though he'd been there a while... anyway they were still very impressive although they're still not really my type of thing, although it must be said that it's great to see them still playing and indeed writing new material. However I have to agree with Sam's analysis that you 'watch them and think they're great but you can't remember a single song in the morning'. He's correct - I think they are, and no you can't...

Happy Easter everyone! Yeah! 

500 not out

This is my 500th blog posting!

As I've said elsewhere in these hallowed pages that I actually started this blogging lark to learn to type and to get better at using a computer, rather than to just wallow in egotism and self-publicity and to scream on and on about myself in cyberspace; I'm still only using two fingers to type most of the time, and I still don't know my way around a computer as I well as I would like, but I'm miles ahead of where I was all this years ago as I typed the words 'please allow me to introduce myself' (that took me about a minute-and-a-half, or it certainly felt as thought it did) to begin my first posting. I suppose you could argue that it would be a bit of a shame if I'd make no progress in the interim period, but the other thing to say is that I thoroughly enjoy writing it, and as long as I feel that way I'll continue to do so even though I often wonder if anybody is actually reading it...

In the meantime the egotism and shameless self-publicity is about to take on new heights, as I've now got my own website. Oh yes! Of course I couldn't even begin to do something like this without the help of people younger than myself, and it's at this point I must thank Dave from Balcony Shirts, his good friend Greg and Ace! DJ chap Simon for their assistance in the creation of something that gives me even more chance to scream on and on about myself in cyberspace. Well, no one else is going to do it are they? If you'd like to have a look then click here - it's work in progress as all of these things inevitably are, but it's been good fun to put together and I'm looking forward to seeing where it all goes in the future.

In the meantime the second 500 blog postings start here...

I was in the middle of a Skype conversation with the Cool Britannia crew on Friday afternoon (lots to talk about with the first show only three weeks away, but more about that another time) when my phone rang - it was my Dad, telling me that Bert Weedon had died. Often considered to be 'the first British guitar hero' thanks to singles like 'Guitar Boogie Shuffle' and his work backing everyone from Tommy Steele to Frank Sinatra, his tuition books 'Play In A Day' and 'Play Every Day' were read and studied by a generation of guitarists. It was all a bit before my time ('Play In A Day' was first published in 1957, 'Guitar Boogie Shuffle' was a hit in 1959 - I'm old, but not that old!) but his influence cannot and indeed should not be denied, as tributes from the likes of Eric Clapton and Brian May show. And Levon Helm has died - like most people I'm more familiar with his work with Bob Dylan and The Band than any of his subsequent projects, but for that alone he is guaranteed a place in music history. And away from music Jack Ashley died at the weekend - I met him once, when The Price played at The Middlesex Show in aid of The Royal National Institute for Deaf people (do your own punchline!) and he seemed to be a very nice chap, very committed to the cause of disability rights (I talked to him about my mum who had MND) and of improving the lives of deaf people. We could do with a few more MPs like him don't you think?

Saturday night it was time to return to The Feathers in Staines for a show with Big Al Reed. We began to an audience of around 10 people including the bar staff (or as Al put it - 'I could have invited you all round and done the gig in my front room') but by a few songs into the first set people were pulling up chairs and enjoying a show that could perhaps politely be described as 'loose in places'. Al had obtained some new backing tracks which we sadly hadn't had chance to practise with, but although a couple of the songs went a bit wrong it just seemed to make people warm to him (he comes over very well on stage) and by the end of the show people were dancing and demanding encore after encore. A good gig, but maybe not one to over-analyse, not least since the evening ended with a young lady in perilously tight red trousers taking severe exception to the barman refusing to serve her after closing time - if there is a World record for swearing I think we all saw a new champion.

And much of today was spent at Jamm in Brixton with Segs running through potential new additions to the Ruts D.C. live arsenal - with new album 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' nearing completion and 'Animal Now' about to be re-issued there were plenty of songs to consider, and we came away with around a dozen of ifs, buts and maybes to start working on at next week's band rehearsal. Now there's something to look forward to!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some work to do on my new website. Now there's something I'd never thought I'd be ever be typing, especially in my 500th blog posting. Strange days indeed.

Critical mass

So - while I'm away in the company of (so-called) anarchists at a punk rock festival there is rioting on the streets and insurrection everywhere you look. I don't know, you turn your back for five minutes... to this end my first day back in the real World on Tuesday was spent clearing the shop windows in grim anticipation of organised trouble in the Uxbridge area. Word had got around on Twitter that there was a meeting planned at 4 o'clock outside the station with havoc and chaos to follow - mind you it also said that there were overturned cars on fire at Brunel University and hundreds of hoodie - wearing youths amassing in Fassnidge Park preparing to take over the town, which judging by the number of people tweeting things like 'well I've just walked my dog through there and there's no one about' was either panic or wishful thinking depending on your point of view. For what my opinion is worth it always saddens me to see working class people attacking other working class people and their property and possessions - it just gives those in power more reasons to say that they need to have more power over us. Look out for a right wing backlash from the 'hang 'em / flog 'em / deport 'em' brigade any time soon.

Incidentally two more clips have surfaced from last weekend's 'T.V. and Leigh' gig - along with 'Lion And The Lamb' which featured in the last posting 'Coming In To Land' and 'Man Down' (in black and white - excellent!) capture the atmosphere well, or certainly the atmosphere as I remember it. It would be nice to have the whole show - I wonder if the feeds to the screens were recorded?

Let's get back to the unreal World for a while, or more specifically the online World. Ian Husbands came into the shop this week - he's an old mate that I hadn't seen for a while (I think I last saw him when he helped us find a venue for a Price reunion gig way back in 2006) and it was good to catch up on things. Somewhere in the course of our conversation he revealed that he's involved with a podcast called Music Scene Investigation, in which three new songs by up-and-coming acts are reviewed by a panel of musicians and / or music industry people who then vote their favourite as 'Song Of The Week'. Somewhere else in the course of our conversation I somehow agreed to appear on this Sunday's addition, which goes out at 9 p.m. on the msi website. If nothing else it should be fun, if only to see if I can get to grips with using Skype...