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Well it's been a relatively quiet week in mad-guitar-World, although given what's on the horizon (and indeed what's happening over the last few weeks) this may not be a bad thing. Still I managed to play a couple of gigs, the first of which was with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks at The Three Mariners in Bagshot. It's a good little venue but it does have a very low ceiling with even lower beams, meaning that anyone approaching six feet in height has to watch themselves for fear of bumping their head. Well the clue is in the name - Big Al had more than a few near misses before eventually banging his forehead halfway through our first. 'I'd just took my hat off as well' said the man himself before putting said hat back on - but it was a good gig, as was last night when The London Sewage Company played at The 12 Bar Club. Considering that we've only played a few shows we're really starting to sound good, and with new songs being added all the time and recording being planned the band is developing well. Most of all it's good fun, which means a lot in these troubled times - talking of which it seems that the days are numbered for The 12 Bar Club as Denmark Street is due to be redeveloped in the near future. This is a terrible shame - the area has so much musical history, not to mention some of the best instrument shops that you're ever likely to visit. Knocking it all down seems like madness to me - mind you, there's a lot of that about sometimes isn't there?
On the subject of musical instrument shops myself and Big Al guitarist Pete (sometimes he deps for me, sometimes we play the show together, sometimes I do them on my own) found ourselves at Charlie Chandler's Guitar Experience in Hampton yesterday morning. Simon Bishop from The Good Old Boys works there teaching guitar and had recommended that we paid the shop a visit; I'm pleased to say that we weren't disappointed to the extent that we both said words to the effect of 'we'd better get out of here before we start buying things'. Mind you I suppose that's the idea of a shop... still it was great to see such an excellent selection of guitars and gear, and I have a feeling that we'll be there again before too long.
A busy Saturday also saw Flying Squad singer Andy celebrating his 50th birthday with a party at his place. Myself and Squad sticksman Andy went to see him late afternoon as we both had gigs in the evening (he was depping with Big Al and co!) and it was good to catch up with him. We all agreed that we really must get The Flying Squad back onto a stage as soon as possible. And we really must!
This week all roads lead to Islington, as Ruts D.C. are playing at The Garage this coming Saturday 25th October with Evil Blizzard and The Duel. To this end myself and Segs got together last Thursday to discuss tactics, and with rehearsals booked for this week it's looking like being a fine evening. Well, I'm certainly looking forward to it...
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...
It's been a slightly quieter few days... sort of...
I saw Johnny Warman play several times with The Mods, and was always impressed. both with his not-inconsiderable vocal ability and his choice of songs - if you're going to have a covers band then you might as well play songs by The Who, The Kinks, The Small Faces... well, that's pretty much how we run The Upper Cut! His new band Magic Bus (great name!) were playing at Tropic At Ruislip on Friday, and expectations were high. Well they were from my point of view anyway... in the main the band lived up to them, being excellent musicians although perhaps a little 'heavy' sounding for some of the material (for example 'You Really Got Me' was more Van Halen than The Kinks - I'd have much preferred it to have been the other way round!) I also felt that they played the set in a slightly odd order - finishing the evening with 'Won't Get Fooled Again', 'Love Reign O'er Me' and 'See Me Feel Me' / 'Listening To You' is unlikely to disappoint a Who obsessive such as myself, but none of them can exactly be described as great dance songs, and since up until that point in proceedings the area in front of the stage had been heavily populated with people shaking a leg or two they somewhat dissipated the atmosphere. A good rather than great evening then, although I'll try to catch the band again as it'll be interesting to see where they go from here.
And talking of Tropic At Ruislip Sunday 2nd March sees a very special night there, when The Flying Squad and The Band Of Sceptics play a tribute show to the late and undeniably great Gypie Mayo - more news nearer to the day, but it should be a great night!
Saturday saw the first Back To Zero gig of 2014, at The Gardeners Retreat in Boothen near Stoke-on-Trent. Also on the bill were Robby Allen and The Kite Collectors and The Found, and proceeds from the evening went towards buying an FM licence for Alan May's 'Glory Boy Mod Radio Show' on 6 Towns Radio. With Squirrel away elsewhere Pete is depping on bass, and Stuart returns on keyboards - when we arrive all the bands are there but there's no sign of a sound man or indeed a P.A. system. They both eventually turn up around half past five, and with door due to open at 7.30pm sound check is therefore a rather rushed affair. Still with over 150 tickets sold for a 200 capacity venue a good evening is in prospect - we take the short walk back to The Plough Hotel where we're staying to get changed before coming back to the venue in time to catch the first band The Found. Introduced by Alan as 'a band from a small town in Sunderland called Newcastle-upon-Tyne' (cue a predictably raucous reaction from the band members!) they play a good set that perhaps owes a little too much to Paul Weller but that is very enjoyable all the same. Next up are Robby Allen and The Kite Collectors - I remember seeing Mr. Allen in The Mild Mannered Janitors back in the day, he was good then and he's good now, with his young band matching him move-for-move and the audience getting behind him from the word go. By the time we go on the place is packed - starting and finishing with our new single 'Love Like Suicide' (7'' vinyl available soon - oh yes!) we play a good set to a very appreciative audience, and we all agree that it's a great start to the BTZ year. Afterwards there's time for a few drinks with some of the audience before stumbling back to our hotel for some well-earned sleep. A fine evening - and here's 'Your Side Of Heaven' from the show. My guitar is loud isn't it? Good!
And yesterday it was back to Jamm in Brixton to continue working on the various Ruts D.C. projects currently being prepared for release - it's all sounding good but there's still work to be done... and The Upper Cut play The Kings Arms in Harefield this Saturday followed by a 4pm show at The Horns in Watford on Sunday afternoon so we're rehearsing tomorrow night - still busy...
I've got no gigs this coming weekend - it's been quite a while since I've heard myself say that so I'm not going to complain too much (for once!) as it'll hopefully give me time to get all my stuff together for the upcoming Damned / Ruts D.C. tour. With this in mind Dave, Segs and myself met up on Thursday to discuss tactics for the shows - we also found time to look at some new song ideas, and with Segs and myself trading ideas on acoustic guitars the songs are shaping up to be much rockier than the 'Rhythm Collision Volume 2' material. All good stuff, and lots to look forward to.
Friday night Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks played at The Three Wishes in Edgware. With England playing Chile down the road at Wembley Stadium we didn't start our first set until the game finished as it was on television in the venue and they were hoping for people who had attended the match would be coming down later - in the event we started to a fairly empty bar and finished to a fairly full one, which has to be better than the other way round doesn't it? It was my last show with the band until after the afore-mentioned tour (my good friend Pete will be depping for me in my absence) and it was an enjoyable enough affair without being anything too out of the ordinary, if you know what I mean. Still that's much better than it being a bad show!
I went to Tropic At Ruislip on Saturday evening to see Roadhouse. I've seen their name around regularly over the past few years and had always heard good things about them so it was good to get chance to finally catch a show - it would be churlish to suggest that the inclusion of two female vocalists in their line-up also effected my decision to attend, but I will admit that it didn't count against it... I guess you'd describe them as a 'blues rock' band, and overall it was a good show although it was rather hampered by a less-than-excellent sound - the girls's voices we often far too loud and had a somewhat 'boxy' sound while the guitars were nowhere near loud enough (after all, whoever heard of a guitar being too loud?!?) meaning that the band had less power than perhaps they might. Still as I say it was a good show - and it's always great to see a band that plays mostly it's own songs rather than cover versions. Well, I think that it is... and while I was there I spoke to the promoters Philip and Dave about a Gypie Mayo tribute show that'll be happening on March 2nd. It should feature The Flying Squad and The Band Of Sceptics, with the proceeds going to the hospice that cared for Gypie during his illness. I'm helping to organise it with Band Of Sceptics mainman Pete Sargeant, so expect any amount of increasingly desperate 'please come to our gig'-type publicity from me nearer to the time.
And last night I once again returned to The Three Wishes jam night with Pete and Big Al - this time we corrupted Howard and Andy from the house band into playing 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Jilted John' with us - yes, you read that correctly. It's hard to imagine two more diverse songs isn't it? Well, that was the idea!
Right - only a week-and-a-bit to go...
Sad news - Gypie Mayo died today. He's one of the best guitarists - make that one of the best musicians - that I've ever seen.
He's probably best known for replacing Wilko Johnson in Dr. Feelgood, but he also worked with The Yardbirds, The Band Of Sceptics, The Practice and many others. I saw him play many times over the years in all of those bands and more and he was always absolutely brilliant, an inspiration to me and many others. I last saw him back in June 2010 at Tropic Of Ruislip when The Flying Squad supported The Wolftracks, who were basically The Band Of Sceptics playing Howlin' Wolf songs. Johnny Squirrel was playing bass for us that night - he knew Gypie from back in the day when Squirrel played with Lew Lewis and Gypie was in The Feelgoods and he introduced me to the man himself after our set; unprompted he told me how much he'd liked my playing in 'Dirty Water'. I could have been happier, but not much. At the end of the evening he and I chatted as he put his equipment away, I'd meet him a couple of times before and he always seemed to be a genuine, humble man who loved to play music. That's a pretty good thing to be don't you think?
A few weeks ago I received a letter from Band Of Sceptics mainman Pete Sargeant; he's been to Gypie's birthday party (he and I share the same birthday, July 24th) and during the course of the evening my name somehow came up - Gypie not only remembered me but asked Pete to send me his best wishes and gave him a commemorative plectrum to pass on to me. Amazing.
I looked at the plectrum for a few seconds - he couldn't have known it but I was having a bad day. A really bad day. I picked up my Stratocaster, plugged it in, turned the amplifier up and played 'Milk And Alcohol'. Suddenly things weren't quite so bad.
God bless you Gypie - and thanks for everything.
After the euphoria of last weekend it's back down to Earth with a bump for your humble narrator this week with the news of three deaths:-
Roy Chuter was a man that I can't claim to have known well, but I have very good memories of the time that I did spend with him. Back in the late Eighties and early Nineties The Price were often featured in 'Wake Up!' fanzine, and Roy was a good friend of Dave T. the editor who I saw at gigs here and there and at Dave's legendary 'Womblestock' parties. Lately he'd been running The Duke Of Wellington pub in Shoreham where I played with both The Price and T.V. Smith in recent years. I heard of his passing from an email from Dave, and I had chance to talk to Attila The Stockbroker about him at The Rebellion Festival who told me the sad story of his demise. The depth of feeling for the man can be seen by even a cursory glance at the Brighton And Hove Albion F.C. North Stand forum - Roy is someone who will be missed by many many people.
The man I always knew simply as 'old Michael' died earlier this month - a familiar figure in and around the pubs of Uxbridge, his tales of the London jazz scene of the 1950s and '60s never failed to amuse and entertain. He came to see The Upper Cut not-so-long ago - when I next saw him he came up to me with the words 'too loud man!' Let's face it, he was probably correct... in recent years East saw more of him than I did, but he'd always have plenty to say whenever I did see him, and would often leave us both with the words 'I'll see you two reprobates later'. Again I won't pretend that he was a close friend but he was someone that I spent some good times with, and a night at The Load Of Hay will never be quite the same again.
And talking of The Load Of Hay, it was in said establishment last Thursday evening that I heard that Chicken Legs Weaver had died last month. I saw Andy play there on several occasions (I also saw him at The 100 Club supporting Wilko Johnson, and he played with The Flying Squad at Tropic At Ruislip back in February 2010) and I'll remember him as a great character, a fine musician and a fiercely committed bluesman who played his music with a fire and a passion that many aspire to but only very few achieve. I'll also remember him (and indeed Roy and Michael) as being a very nice guy, which I think you'll agree is a pretty good way to remember anyone.
Having played a show with Utter Madness earlier this month it was with great interest that I made my way over to the afore-mentioned Tropic At Ruislip on Friday evening to see It Must Be Madness. They seem to be a popular bunch as over 200 people turned up for the show, and very good they were too with many an obscure album track among the expected hits. I missed much of their second set as I was on the phone to Dave Ruffy attempting to plan this weekend's Ruts D.C. appearance at The 3 Chords Festival in Penzance (we never close!) but they certainly had the crowd dancing by the end of the evening. And it was great to see the club so full of people - we could do with more venues like this couldn't we?
Saturday night it was over to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham to see Midnight. As I didn't have a gig myself I probably would have gone along anyway to give Big Al Reed (he plays saxophone in the band) a bit of support, but with the man himself Terry Peaker busy elsewhere the prospect of seeing my old mate Johnny Squirrel depping on bass was just too good to miss. He made a very good job of it too, often in the face of adversity given the shall-we-say 'eccentric' nature of some of the performances. He made a very good job of depping in The Blistering Buicks the next afternoon at Ye Olde George in Colnbrook too, where our three sets were lapped up by the faithful and the landlady offered us two more gigs in the next couple of months. Excellent!
Monday morning in Balcony Shirts began with the first person through the front door asking if he could use the toilet, then looking astonished when he was told that he couldn't. I heard myself say 'this is going to be a weird day' to new-ish recruit Simona, and much as I might be wrong about a lot of things I was proved right about this one, with the next person asking if they could have an envelope (that's 'have' not 'buy', and why they thought a t-shirt printing shop would be the place to go for such a thing is anybody's guess) followed by a chap asking if we sold tennis racquets. Some people even asked if we printed t-shirts... all in a day's work I guess, although things brightened up no end when a young lady told us that she ran The Blue Plague Printing School - 'it's an anti-Tory printing workshop, we'll be doing it again soon, you should come along' said she cheerily. You know, I just might!
From there it was over to Soundlab Studios in Loughton for a Back To Zero rehearsal where an enjoyable and very productive session saw new songs tried alongside some cover versions to be played at a private party this coming weekend. A long day, but a good one - as I sit here thinking about the three gentleman featured earlier in this posting that feels like a great thing to be able to say. Well, I think that it is - don't you?
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...
Ravi Shankar, master of the sitar, has died. His influence on George Harrison and The Beatles (and therefore on The 1960s generally - witness the reaction to this performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival) has been well documented, but how many of us have actually heard one of his albums all the way through? I must admit that I haven't... still it's always sad to loose a musician of his stature, and it's certainly sad in this case.
Two gigs for your humble narrator the weekend just gone, the first of which was the much-looked-forward-to (by me at least!) Flying Squad show at Tropic At Ruislip with Dr. Feelgood. Since we usually play a fair few Feelgoods songs (to the extent that we're often billed as a tribute to them) we worked up a different set of songs especially for this show - indeed of the 11 songs played we'd only played 3 of them in public before. As such it was a very interesting show from our point of view, not least because a couple of things didn't go according to plan...
As we carried our gear into the venue Dr. Feelgood were soundchecking with 'Down At The Doctors' and were sounding, well, pretty much exactly like Dr. Feelgood. When we went to set our stuff up we discovered that they didn't want to move any of their gear, meaning that Andy was obliged to set his drums up stage left rather than in the centre; a bit annoying, but worse still his snare drum wires worked loose as we soundchecked. Attempts to secure them proved at best semi-successful, and as a result our set was something of a nightmare for our drummer man with him having to attempt a repair after virtually every song. That said our efforts went down extremely well with the assembled multitude, to the extent that we even played an encore. And Dr. Feelgood were good too - I know there is a certain amount of controversy about the band continuing to play with no original members, but they're still a great night out and that's all right by me. And this was a great night out, right up to the point where I asked Dave the co-promoter about the band's money - as he said something like 'you'll have to talk to Philip about that' I got a bad feeling about what might be coming next...
'I never said there was any money in the gig' said Philip, sounding less-than-friendly. I hoped he was joking. He wasn't. He went on to say that he'd had to pay Dr. Feelgood a large percentage of the door money, then pay for the P.A., and reiterated that he had never said that he was going to pay us anything. Well that may or may not be the case, and maybe I was naive for not checking exactly what was going on - but he definitely didn't say that the band wouldn't get any money for the show. I got the feeling that we were supposed to feel honoured that we'd been allowed to play; what he didn't (and indeed doesn't) know is that I'd turned down a well-paid Blues Brothers show as this one had been in the diary for a long time and I hadn't want to let him and the venue down. Add to that the fact that the band (the other members of which travel a fair distance to play in Ruislip) had scheduled extra rehearsals to learn the afore-mentioned new material and you have an idea of how badly this went down with The Flying Squad. Maybe a bit of petrol money could have been found from somewhere? 'I'll make it up to you next time' said he walking - make that scurrying - off. Next time? We'll see if there is one.
On a more positive note Saturday evening saw myself and my good mate and former Cane Toads guitarist Pete journey up to Solihull for a Blues Brothers playback show at The Slug And Lettuce with Born In Chicago. Odd as it sounds the venue had specified two guitarists for the show (well I think they had - I can't think of any other reason that we were both there!) which is an especially strange situation as there were already guitars on the backing tracks. Weird! Tony and Guy (they're really called that!) were checking the P.A. when we got there - after running through a couple of tracks we were all ready to rock, and with a couple of hours to go before showtime we decided to go out for a look around. After walking through the Touchwood shopping centre we found The Mason Arms where drinks were ordered and stories were told. We also chanced upon the extremely interesting-looking Sporting Barbers...
9.45 pm and our first set begins with Pete and myself strumming along with 'I Can't Turn You Loose' before Tony & Guy join us for 'Gimme Some Loving'. Playback shows are generally a strange affair from my point of view - add in the fact that there were two of us on guitar instead of just me and this should perhaps have been doubly strange but it was actually really good fun, not least due to T&G's fearless performance which saw them spend almost as much time in the audience as on the stage. A chap asked a girl to marry him, we sang 'Happy Birthday' a couple of times and a lot of people looked as though they were very drunk indeed - a good gig.
And it was a good if somewhat surprising gig (I didn't know I was going until around 4 pm in the afternoon) last night, when I accompanied Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes to The Forum in Kentish Town to see Rancid supported by Cock Sparrer. Pete was going up to meet Lars Frederiksen of Rancid to give him a copy of the GLM album 'Chemical Landslide (incidentally here is a review of said album on Louder Than War, and a very good review it is too) as Lars is a big Lurkers fan; he invited Pete to the gig, and he asked me if I'd like to go too. Result!
We'd just ordered a couple of drinks in The Bull And Gate when the familiar figure of Attila The Stockbroker approached us. Yes, him again! The next 40-odd minutes saw Esso and Attila debate everything from The Velvet Underground to Rock Against Racism with great gusto - I even got the odd word in here and there myself.
We met Lars outside the backstage doors where he was making himself available to sign posters, tickets etc. He seemed like a nice chap, and Pete delivered the GLM album which Lars was very interested in. From there it was back into the venue where Cock Sparrer were beginning their set. I'd not seen them before, not least because they seemed to have a rather dubious right wing following, but that didn't seem to be in evidence at this show. I enjoyed them although they played for a bit too long in my opinion, and I for one could have done without 'England Belongs To Me'... Rancid on the other hand were excellent, and I for one was amazed by the fanaticism of the majority of the audience, most of whom seemed to know every word of every song. A great show.
Right - three rehearsals and four gigs on the horizon over the next week or so. That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it...
Jimi Hendrix would have been 70 years old today. I wrote a piece on him in these hallowed pages on the 40th anniversary of his death (you can read it here if you'd like to) and I don't have too much to add to that except to say that I've got 'Electric Ladyland' playing in the background at the moment and despite many people's attempts at emulate it over the last 40-odd years it still sounds like nothing before or since. Who knows what further greatness he would have gone on to produce? As it he left behind an amazing legacy of music that continues to influence people today - how many of us will do anything that even approaches that?
It's hard to imagine the music world without Jimi Hendrix, but we might never have heard him without Chris Stamp who together with Kit Lambert ran Track Records, the label that released much of Hendrix's music during his lifetime. Lambert and Stamp also managed a little group called The Who, so you won't be altogether surprised to hear that I was very saddened to hear of Chris Stamp's death this weekend - my music world certainly wouldn't be the same without him or the acts he was involved with.
Two gigs from The Upper Cut along with a day in the shop and a Flying Squad rehearsal made for a busy but very enjoyable weekend for your humble narrator :-
Friday night saw another Upper Cut show at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge, and bearly a month on from our last appearance there we made a much better job of it this time. Good! Maybe it was because I could hear better (I had an earwax problem last time) or maybe we just had a good gig - either way we had a great night. It was a late one though, and the start of the next day in Balcony Shirts was more than a little bleary from my point of view. Still, that's what they sell coffee for... no time to worry about that though, as we're off to The Burnham Beeches Hotel (they don't normally let people like me into places like that!) to play at Nick and Emma's wedding reception. They come to see the band on a regular basis, and it was great to be invited to play for them. Wedding shows can often be rather strange affairs; I've realised over my time playing them that it's a mistake to think of them as a gig as the band is a really a minor part of the event, often being all but ignored by the assembled multitude. No danger of that here though, as people were on the dance floor almost from the word go - there was even a complaint when we went off for a break to allow Nick and Emma to cut their wedding cake! Terry the bass's night was made when he met Simon Nicol from Fairport Convention (he's a family friend of Emma's) in the interval, and our second set went even better than the first. We could even have played an encore (again often something of a rarity at a wedding) but instead handed our instruments over to Nick's old band The Frantix who played 'Town Called Malice' and 'Mirror In The Bathroom' before DJ's Simon and Darren took over for the rest of the evening's festivities. Great stuff all round.
On Sunday The Flying Squad returned to Ruff Rockers Rehearsal Studio (which for reasons best known to themselves has changed it's name to RnR Studios) for an all day session in preparation for next month's gig at Tropic At Ruislip with Dr. Feelgood. We worked on a Feelgood-free set for December 14th, and even though I say so myself we sounded good, especially considering that we were almost exclusively working on material new to the band. All in all a good day's work which hopefully bodes well for next month's show. And talking of rehearsing I have just - just! - returned from a session with T.V. Smith; our upcoming show at The 12 Bar Club promises to be a classic evening - but more about that next time...
It's nearly time for The Flying Squad to return to show business - as with most of our shows it's at Tropic At Ruislip where we're supporting Dr. Feelgood. Since our set usually features a fair few of their songs we're obviously been obliged to have a bit of a rethink, and to this end emails have been er, emailed between band members over the last few weeks with song suggestions a-plenty - I think we've come up with some great songs for the show, which will be taking place on Friday 14th December. I for one am definitely looking forward to this - while there may not be any original members in the band these days The Feelgoods are an institution in British rhythm and blues - and maybe most importantly as far as this gig is concerned they're still a very fine band. We'll have to be at the top of our game for this one...
I went to the afore-mentioned Tropic at Ruislip on Friday night, partly to talk to promoters Philip and Dave about the upcoming gig and partly to see Bootleg Blondie. I first saw many years ago at The Rayners in Rayners Lane; I remember them being good then but I have to say that they were great this time, and it must be said that you forget how many Blondie songs you know (I'd totally forgotten 'Maria' for example) until you hear them played. Debbie Harris (I'll be really disappointed if I ever find out that's not her real name!) does a splendid job as the lovely Ms Harry, and the band were absolutely excellent. (Yes, I noticed them as well!) A recent addition is bassman Russ Strothard a.k.a. Russell Strutter who played in Tonight all those years ago before going on to play with Eddie And The Hot Rods, Wilko Johnson and Lew Lewis (I think that's where I first saw him) and who depped with us in the Chicago Blues Brothers several times a few years ago. I managed to grab a few words with him at the end (the gig was sold out so there were a lot of people about) and he seems to be really enjoying being in the band, which is good news.
Last night saw The Upper Cut wend our way to Windlesham for a show at The Windlesham Club. (How do they think of those names eh?!?) Bob the guv'nor was friendly as were the locals, and the band played well despite there not being much of an audience to play to. Apparently everyone was at home watching The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing - well that's what the ladies who arrived halfway through our second set said anyway. Still the people who were there enjoyed the show (I should know, I spoke to most of them!) and the afore-mentioned ladies were so disappointed that they'd missed us playing 'Maggie May' that we played it again for them. Well, it seemed like to best thing to do... one of them asked if we could do 'Itchycoo Park' - when we said that we'd already played it they tried to get us to do that one again as well. We might have done if we hadn't already ran well over time! A fun if slightly odd evening.
And there are two shows from The Upper Cut this coming weekend - we're back at The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge on Friday then we're playing at the wedding of two of our regular gig-goers on Saturday. Now that should be interesting...
And now for something completely different - The Afton Satellites at The Half Moon in Putney on Wednesday evening. The venue has changed a bit since I was last there; always a great place to see a band, it's still pretty good but it's now brighter, more... touristy if you know what I mean. Then again it nearly closed a few years ago so it's great to see that it's still in business and putting live music on regularly. The Afton Satellites an interesting bunch - formed by ex-Hamsters bassman Andy Billups they feature Gary Fletcher from The Blues Band on guitar and bass, Tom Leary on fiddle, Ray Brown on vocals and Andy's nephew Matt Billups on percussion. They also have Chris Teeder on keyboards who played on the ill-fated Cool Britannia shows earlier this year and who deps with The Chicago Blues Brothers Band on a regular basis (he's playing with The Flying Squad in this clip - now you know what I was doing at the gig!) They reminded me of The Band both musically and because of the amount of instrument swapping going on - plenty of 'this one's from my solo album' moments made for a varied set, and with cover versions as varied (some might say bizarre) as 'What A Wonderful World' and 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' it was definitely a good first gig for the band. And it was great to see Chris play - I've done many shows with him over the years but hearing him from the audience perspective reminds me that I'm very lucky to play in bands with musicians of his calibre.
Talking of playing in bands The Upper Cut returned to The Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge on Friday evening for what for me at least was a rather strange show. The previous few days had seen me attempting to clear my right ear of a bout of earwax that had developed around the time of the Ruts D.C. show in York last weekend. Sadly my ear was still blocked throughout the show which made it difficult for me to hear exactly what was going on (obviously!) and which resulted in some rather peculiar guitar work and indeed backing vocals from your humble narrator. There was also the slightly odd situation created when Hughie the D.J. asked me for a setlist so that he wouldn't play anything that we were likely to perform - and he then played several of our songs, and even played 'Babylon's Burning' in the interval. Very strange. As I said to a couple of people after the show 'I just couldn't get hold of that one'. And I couldn't. Still it all went down well with the assembled multitude and we're back there next month (on Friday the 23rd since you've asked) so we must have done something right.
And last night saw the fifth annual Paul Fox tribute night (or 'The Paul Fox Social Club' as it's less formally known) which this year was held at The Ruislip Social Club (also the home of Tropic At Ruislip) in, you've guessed it, Ruislip. A highly enjoyable evening featured The Dirty Strangers, The DubCats, Scabies And James and The Moonstompers and raised a substantial sum for The Michael Sobell Hospice at Mount Vernon Hospital. I must admit that I'd feared that I might get a bit of stick from the Fox fans but the only real incident occurred when I was introduced to a ridiculous hippie who said something like 'so you think you can fill Foxy's shoes then do you?' No, actually I don't, and that's not what I'm trying to do, but I don't think that there's much point in trying to explain that here... still it was good to see The Dirty Strangers again (I don't remember when I last saw them, but it wasn't this century!) but somewhat inevitably the highlight for me was a blistering performance from Scabies and James - Texas Terri great on vocals, Austin rock solid on bass, Rat Scabies as astonishing as ever on drums and Brian James re-affirming his place as one of the definitive punk guitarists - which didn't go down too well with some of the attendees, many of whom seemed shocked and even horrified by the band. It seems that even 30-odd years later punk rock can still offend the hippies. Good!
No gigs for your humble narrator this week. Bad!
Let's continue with the sad stuff - Dave Beal has died. I hadn't seen him for a few years, but remember him very well from his days promoting in Rayners Lane back in the 1990s. Along with Pete Feenstra and the late George McFall he worked tirelessly to promote live music in and around London - often in the face of no little adversity - and latterly he'd been involved with Club Ska as well as working with Los Pacaminos. I'll remember him as being a wonderfully enthusiastic man, whether he was expounding the virtues of the latest band that he'd booked to play or talking passionately about his beloved birdwatching, of which he had the most extraordinarily detailed knowledge. I'll also remember him as being a very nice guy.
Time for the first Flying Squad gig of the year, supporting The Clashed at Tropic At Ruislip on Friday night. I saw The Clashed at the same venue last year when they played with The Pistols - this show was better than that one, a 1 1/2 hour set that spanned the whole of The Clash's amazing career. They've still got things the wrong way round (the little chap in the middle sings like Mick, the tall chap on the end sings like Joe) but they made a good job of some very tricky material - it's hard to go from punk to funk and back again via reggae and rock but I thought they did it well. And even though I say so myself The Flying Squad played a very good show, with everyone on top form and a great audience reaction. We're back there in December supporting Dr. Feelgood which should be a very interesting evening, not least because we'll be obliged to learn an almost completely new set of songs - after all, we can hardly play 'She Does It Right' and 'Back In the Night' now can we?
The rest of the weekend saw two shows with Big Al Reed, the first of which was at The Royal Oak in Knowl Hill. It's a year since John the landlord first took the pub over, and comedian Adga Brown was also on the bill. Gigs with Al are always good fun if a little nerve-racking from my point of view since there's no telling what song Al's going to call up next - still it keeps me on my toes, as they say. Barring the odd 'how does this one go?' moment it was a good show, as was the gig at The Feathers in Chalfont St. Giles yesterday afternoon, which was distinguished by Al's mate Ekkie making an unannounced appearance with us by walking in through the front door playing saxophone, and the amusing (not to say astonishing) sight of Al's 84 year old mum dancing to several songs. I hope I'm as fit as she is at her age. Actually I hope I make it to her age at all!
We finished our last song around 7.30pm; after packing our gear away in record time we arrived at The Swan in Iver an hour or so later, where an open mic night was in full swing. Now I've always shied away from events such as this - the idea of jamming (maaan!) has always struck me as being far too hippie-ish for an old punk like myself to get involved in, although there are a lot of jam nights taking place these days and I'm often told that they're generally good fun and well worth going along to. This one is run by John who's an accomplished musician and guitar builder, and who has been cajoling me into coming along for quite a while. So it was then that Al and myself (accompanied by Tony on bass and Mark on drums) performed two songs which went down well enough for us to be asked to perform three more at the end of the session, the landlady approached Al with an offer of a gig, and I had a chat with the legend that is Les Payne - good stuff all round. I can't see myself seeking out too many similar events (although I suppose you never know - after all, plenty of people do!) but I enjoyed playing and I'll be making an effort to attend the next session (it takes place on the first Sunday of every month) on October 7th.
In the meantime I'm playing at The Proms in Hyde Park this weekend - now that's a sentence that I never thought I'd ever type...
Sad news - Tim Cross has died. In addition to being T.V. Smith's long-time musical collaborator (an association that goes all the way back to the second Adverts album 'Cast Of Thousands') he also worked with artists as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, Mike Oldfield and The Skids. There's an excellent Louder than War piece on him here, and a thread on T.V.'s website forum here shows just how much the fans thought of him. A very sad loss.
Malcolm Owen died 32 years ago on Saturday (32 years! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Actually it still flies when you're not having fun as well...) so this seems like a good time to mention that a Facebook page has been set up as a tribute - you can find it here, and although I'm not the World's biggest Facebook fan I must say that it's great to see that one of the greatest punk rock frontmen of them all hasn't been forgotten.
In the meantime your humble narrator has been guilty of the sin of counting his chickens before they were hatched (I'd changed my guitar strings and everything!) by saying in these hallowed pages that he had a gig with Utter Madness this week; it was due to be an outdoor show (you know what's coming next now don't you?) at Cliveden House on Friday, and it was cancelled on the morning of the event due to the house grounds being waterlogged. Bugger! Now I really am taking this personally... given the atrocious weather we've been having lately I guess it's hardly surprising, but it's disappointing all the same. And that means I've had getting on for 30 shows cancelled in the last couple of months! No wonder I've got no money... still Wednesday's Flying Squad rehearsal went well (we've got a show next month with Clash tribute band The Clashed at Tropic At Ruislip) and I'm gigging with Ruts D.C. this coming week (indeed I'm leaving for rehearsal when I finish typing this) so that's something to really look forward to. As I said last time - you have to stay optimistic...
And last night it was time for my my latest stint on Music Scene Investigation. I made a 'surprise' appearance last month (it was the night England played Italy in the European Championships which might have had an adverse effect on their ability to get a guest that night?!?) and I always enjoy contributing to the show as if nothing else it's helped me more-or-less understand what a podcast is! The three songs presented to us this time were probably the most, shall we say, challenging ones that I've yet encountered:- 'song 1' was instrumental apart from a voiceover in the middle and sounded like it had been mixed by Beethoven, 'song 2' featured a woefully out of tune guitar and 'song 3' was of such poor audio quality that it was hard to tell exactly what was going on*. By default we voted the first one 'Song Of The Week' but it was very much the lesser of three evils. Still it was an enjoyable show (from my point of view at least!) and plans are afoot for me to make more contributions to the website - more news as and when I have it, as they say...
*And we've since discovered that this track contained a sample from an Adele track, and as such was illegible for inclusion in the programme. We were trying to work out what it had reminded us of!
Well it seems as though television wasn't quite over after all, as John Lydon made an extraordinary appearance on BBC1's 'Question Time' on Thursday evening. Overall I thought he came over reasonably well, especially his rant against bankers which got probably the most enthusiastic applause of the evening. As I fan I wish he hadn't interrupted people quite as often as he did as I think it turned people who might otherwise have found his point of view interesting against him; I also wish he didn't play to the gallery quite as much (did he really shout 'UP THE PARATROOPERS!' at one point? Yes, amazingly, he did..) although whoever thought of sitting him next to Tory temptress (it says here) Louise Mensch clearly had a good sense of humour. I read somewhere that Morrissey has been approached to appear on the programme - could this be the start of some even less likely appearances in the not-too-distant future?
And I remember seeing Eric Sykes on telly as a youngster, and indeed even recognised some of the clips shown in the wake of his death this week. As a kid I saw him as a man who could be funny without really doing very much if you know what I mean - and although I don't remember 'The Plank' from when it was first shown I remember my pre-teenage self laughing uncontrollably at it a few years later. Have a look here and see what you think - it might not look as funny as it did to me all those years ago, but I bet you still smile. I've just watched it, and although I'm not laughing uncontrollably, I'm definitely still smiling...
Time for a gig at last, with The F.B.I. Band in their guise as The Blues Brothers Experience at 'Groove At The Grove' in the grounds of The Hall Grove School in Bagshot. In previous postings I might well have ranted and raved about the British class system and all that sail in her, but as all the remaining Cool Britannia gigs have just been cancelled I'm so relieved to be actually playing a show that I can't really find it within myself at the moment. Maybe on another day... well let's face it, definitely on another day...
Given the extraordinary weather that we've been having over the last few weeks an open air event such as this could have gone either way - fortunately the rain held off for most of our set, and as a result we went down well with the assembled multitude of parents, teachers and pupils. Dep drummer Mark coped well with what I believe was his first gig with the band as did Blues Brother Austin (that's the same Austin that I used to work with...) while Chicago Blues Brothers stalwart Dave Land teamed up with F.B.I. regular Ian in the horn section alongside Jon on bass, Richard on keyboards and Tony as always on vocals. As I said above it was something of a relief to be playing a gig again - I've spent much of today putting my accounts in order and filling in my tax return, and have realised that my earnings in the last tax year are my lowest for a very long time. Oh well - it could be worse... just... still there's a rehearsal with The Flying Squad and a gig with Utter Madness this week, then next week Ruts D.C. play a festival in Croatia with The Upper Cut gigging perilously close to my birthday the week after that so hopefully things are about to improve. You have to stay optimistic haven't you? Well - haven't you?
