To Hull and back

Since last we spoke Ruts DC have played shows in Hull and North London - both good gigs, with more to come as we shall see. Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have also been out and about at The Farmers Boy in St. Albans (I'd not been there before, a great little venue) The General Eliott in Uxbridge (a suitably raucous local gig which got so hot that Al had to go outside for some air halfway through the second set) and Ye Olde Swan in Burnham (with fellow six-stringer Pete elsewhere I had to play his parts - I didn't realise that I had so much skin on my teeth) all of which reminded me how much fun it is to play with the band.

Back to Ruts DC - the Hull show took place last Saturday in the wonderfully-named Zebedee's Yard, which I believe is a car park when it's not a venue. We travelled up by train and arrived to find everything ready for soundcheck. There was just time to say hello to The Stranglers before running through a few songs then heading back to our hotel for some much needed food. We returned to find The Black Delta Movement on stage and the venue filling up nicely despite the rain, which thankfully stopped just before we went on stage. With only 45 minutes to play with we stuck more-or-less to the set we'd been playing on the Stranglers tour, with the addition of 'Suffragette City' which we dedicated to for local legends The Spiders From Mars. Although the rain had stopped it was still quite windy meaning that the sound on stage was a bit variable - we weren't sure if we'd played well but thankfully the audience reaction suggested that we had. We saw about half of the Big Country show (I hadn't seen them since back in the day and they sounded great - mind you, they usually did) before deciding to take our instruments and gear back to the hotel - we'd intended to return to see The Stranglers but somehow ended up drinking in the bar until 2 am. Well - it had started raining again, and we were thirsty... talking of which, last night we played at Urban Voodoo Machine drummer Gary 50th birthday party at Bones And Pearl Studios (another great name!) in Seven Sisters. 'Twas an evening of great jollity as you might well imagine - indeed it might be better if I leave the details to your imagination... go on, try imagining what went on... you're probably correct... but we played well, and that's the main thing. It only ever is.

This week we travel to Ireland for two shows with Stiff Little Fingers - as a long time fan I've been looking forward to these gigs since they were first announced. We're in Dublin on Friday before travelling up to Belfast for an open air show to celebrate SLF's 40th anniversary; The Stranglers (yep, them again!) and The Outcasts are also on the bill and with Terri Hooley of Good Vibrations Records DJ-ing the scene is set for a classic event. And after that we set out to play some shows of our own - but more about that next time.

Same as it ever was?

Monday 7th August, 3.17 pm

As I write this, in shaky Biro in a reporter's notebook in the back of the bus somewhere on the Southbound M40 there is much to reflect upon. The Rebellion Festival is invariably a great thing to be part of and this year has certainly been no exception, but somehow this gathering seemed to go further than most. Ruts D.C. played two shows - an all-guns-blazing Saturday night electric set and an emotional performance to close the acoustic stage last night as well as nipping across to Hebden Bridge on Friday evening for a gig at The Trades Club where we were joined by Baz Warne of The Stranglers for two songs. I also spent a fair bit of time behind the Cadiz Music merchandise stall with Richard and Blaise as well as catching some great performances from T.V. Smith and The Skids among others. There were the usual unwisely late night drinking sessions (it was getting light as I stumbled through Blackpool on the way back to my hotel on Saturday night / Sunday morning) but that's just about par for the course - all things considered I don't feel too bad (it feels as though I rarely got to eat anything more substantial than sandwiches) although I suspect that I'm heading for an uncommonly early night tonight.

Our Saturday show on the outdoor Casbah stage was preceded by a suitably energetic Neville Staple show and was followed by a wonderful performance from Misty In Roots - I'm sure that I wasn't the only person excited to see the words 'Ruts' and 'Misty' on the same bill again after all these years. Earlier in the day we were interviewed by a BBC film crew for an upcoming documentary on the festival - as always it was Dave and Segs that they really wanted to hear from but I managed a few words here and there. They also filmed a fair bit of our show - I wonder how much if any of it will make it into the finished programme? There were a few fraught moments here and there - I got locked out of our dressing room ten minutes before the show and only just made it to the stage in time having had to run up and down gawd knows how many flights of stairs to get the key and then get changed. Maybe this meant that I didn't have time to get nervous - either way our performance was, even though I say so myself, a stormer. We'd played well the night before but this one really took off, with the middle section of 'In A Rut' featuring the riff from 'Interstellar Overdrive', a cover of 'Suffragette City' (which began life as an impromptu run through at Monday's rehearsal and which then somehow made it onto the stage) and the final song 'Psychic Attack' provoking a near riot. In contrast last night's acoustic show in a very full bar (possibly dangerously so) took everything back to basics, with rarely performed songs from 'Music Must Destroy' rubbing shoulders with Ruts and Ruts D.C. classics and grown men being moved to tears on several occasions. And that was just on the stage.

This coming Saturday we're playing at the splendidly - named Zebedee's Yard in Hull with The Stranglers and Big Country - The Spiders From Mars were from there so maybe 'Suffragette City' will make it to the stage again. In the meantime there is much to reflect upon. I've always been somewhat over-romantic (some might say pretentious, and let's face it, they may well have a point!) about the power of music, how it brings people together, the emotions that it can evoke and how something as seemingly insignificant as a mere pop song can sometimes mean everything to the listener - well I've seen all of that and more proved time and time again over the past few days. I feel as though I've shook hundreds of hands and been in almost as many photographs with people who wanted to say how much they enjoyed the shows, what a song or songs means to them, even to ask how I get a particular guitar sound - we stopped at a service station a few minutes ago and a couple come over to say how much they liked the acoustic gig. You can't buy moments like that, even if you wanted to. Suddenly the road home feels more like the road back to the real world, whatever that is. It's an amazing feeling to be told that you make a difference (however small) to people's lives, maybe even that you contribute to making life a bit more bearable when it all gets too much. That's something to be proud of don't you think? Well, I think that it is. 

So - now what? More gigs, including some Irish shows with Stiff Little Fingers later this month. Oh, and we're talking about the next album. Of course we are. The road home goes on forever...

Tuesday 8th August, 7.52 pm 

Ah! The usual post - Rebellion ramblings that seem to say very little but that somehow say everything about the previous few days. I bet that I said almost the same thing last year, and the year before that, and the year before that...

'Oh no - don't say it's true...'

If I'm still alive on July 24th this year - and I really hope that I will be - I'll be 55 years old.

I can't remember President Kennedy's assassination; I remember Jimi Hendrix dying, and I've already written (here!) in these hallowed pages of the trouble I got in on the day John Lennon left the building. That was probably the biggest 'celebrity death' for me - Princess Diana's passing was a huge international event but I've never been a royalist, and I suppose Kurt Cobain's death was a big one for the generation below mine. My mum always used to say that something bad always happens around Christmas (I don't know why she used to say it, but she always did!) but 2015 had ended with Brad from The Specials and Lemmy dying so surely that was bad enough? So when I woke up on Monday morning to a text message that read 'I need hugs!' from my mate Dave I wasn't sure what to think; when a text then arrived from my friend Nicky that spoke of her feeling 'sick with sadness' I thought that I'd better check the TV news...

If you're my age (or indeed a few years older or younger than me) then David Bowie has, for want of a better term, always been there. Actually he's always been miles ahead of his many imitators and indeed all of the rest of us but you know what I mean I think. And he's still there now too isn't he? There has been so much said and written about him in the last week that I don't really feel as though I can add very much, other than to say that we were lucky, very lucky, to have been on Earth at the same time as he was. Musically my favourite part of his long and magnificent career remains those immortal recordings with The Spiders From Mars, but that's just me - fans everywhere will have a different memory of what a song means to them, of how they felt when they saw him and realised that they weren't alone anymore, or that it was ok to be different, or to feel like an outsider in a world that couldn't see them and didn't care anyway, or, or, or...

Who'll love Aladdin Sane?

By a twist of fate I found myself in Brixton (Bowie's birthplace) on Monday afternoon as myself and Segs were going to Jamm to work on the Ruts D.C. recordings that we began last month. As I walked up the stairs from the underground station it was impossible not to notice that there were rather more Bowie t-shirts around that there might normally be; across from the station a small crowd had gathered around the mural on the side of the Morleys department store, with people leaving flowers, pictures, messages and more - I'm not normally one for grieving over people that I'd never met but it was impossible not to be moved by the scenes. Meanwhile The Academy had 'DAVID BOWIE - FOREVER OUR HERO' in the place where it would normally advertise the evening's main attraction - and why not? Local boy makes good. Local boy makes very good indeed. About as good as it can get if you think about it. 
I like most people have been playing a fair bit of the great man's work in the last few days - I'd actually been listening to the Spiders stuff a fair bit lately anyway in an attempt to tune into Mick Ronson's guitar genius as one of the sources of inspiration for our recordings - and have been struck by just how bloody good Bowie was.

The Bowie Academy.

Well he was wasn't he? And it's easy to forget that - you don't accidentally get a 50+ year career at anything if you're not any good at it, or (as someone remarked to me while telling me that Bowie had been 'lucky' as he 'wasn't particularly talented'. Oh dear...) if all you do is rely on fashion, or gimmicks, or indeed anything other than making great music and giving brilliant performances. David Bowie did both of those things of course, but he also did so much more. I'm sure there'll be a backlash soon, where some jumped up two bit journalist or television presenter tries to make a name for themselves by starting a bit of controversy ('he wasn't that good', 'he stole all his best moves', 'he sacked all The Spiders' - you know the sort of thing) but that'll hardly matter - the last third of The 20th Century belonged to David Bowie, and there's a good chance that a fair bit of The 21st Century will be influenced by him and his work. And rightly so. It is unlikely that we will see his like again, but we should be thankful that we saw it at all. 

Somewhat inevitably the day at Jamm was tinged with sadness. Or was it? Greg the engineer said how proud he felt that Bowie had been from Brixton; I suspect he wasn't the only one in the area with that thought. Rob from The Alabama 3 was on hand, he said that we were there to make music and make music we would - his possibly rather controversial production methods (tins of Red Stripe, bottles of wine and, er, more besides...) coaxed some astonishing vocal performances out of Segs. Even though I say so myself the tracks are sounding great; there's a lot of work still to do and more tracks to record next month but I for one am very optimistic about how the album is shaping up.

After the session I walked back along Brixton Road to the tube station - there were hundreds of people at the mural singing, dancing and indeed crying, an amazing (and from my point of view absolutely unforgettable) outpouring of emotion. It really was quite a thing to see, but nothing less than the occasion deserved.

New boy band forms - 
see you on 'The X Factor'...

On Thursday evening Dave, Segs and myself had what I suppose could be thought of as a 'works outing' to see Henry Rollins at The Barbican. In addition to being a great fan of both The Ruts and Ruts D.C. he of course sang with the band at Paul Fox's last show - I first met him at a rehearsal for said show (you can read the story here if you'd like to) and have spoken to him several times since then, he's an absolutely extraordinary character who is completely unlike anyone else that I've ever met. His 150+ minute show saw him talk (and talk and talk and, er, talk...) about anything and everything that came to mind - although some parts were obviously scripted I spoke to people who had seen other shows on this tour which were apparently quite different in content. Incredible. He told me that he has to have a timer on stage with him otherwise he would 'go on all night'. I for one don't doubt that he could do exactly that.

Tropic At Ruislip hosted Who's Who on Friday evening - given my admiration (oh ok then, worship) for The Who it's always interesting to see a tribute band and Who's Who are probably the best that I've seen (not that I've seen that many!) They're more 'Live At Leeds' than Goldhawk Club, but they make a great job of honouring The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band In The World. And it was the first gig of 2016 for Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks last night, at The Dashwood Arms near High Wycombe. This was a new venue for the band and I must say that it's an excellent establishment with a good tradition of live music - with Terry elsewhere Dave did a great job on bass and the band began the year on high note.

This week there may well be more Ruts D.C. recording as well as another couple of Buicks gigs and probably more besides - but if you'll excuse me it's time to play 'The Jean Jenie' just one more time...

Spiderman

I got up early on Wednesday morning. Well, I was up before 6.30, which I think is early although I suppose for some people it's not that early at all. I'd decided to go to the 'David Bowie Is' exhibition at The Victoria And Albert Museum in London - research had revealed that although all the advance tickets had been sold it was possible to buy a ticket on the day if you got there at 10am and queued up. I picked Wednesday as I was working in the shop on all the other days last week and I wanted to go before it got to the school summer holidays. Anyway as I stumbled around half awake (or half asleep, depending on your point of view) I turned my computer on the check how the tube trains were running and was greeted with the very sad news that ex-Spiders From Mars bassist Trevor Bolder had died. He played on what for many are some of Bowie's greatest ever recordings - I'd go so far as to say that they're some of the finest rock records of all time. A few hours later at the exhibition I saw that amazing live-on-'Top Of The Pops' version of 'The Jean Jenie' that was rediscovered a couple of years ago - Bowie, Bolder, Mick Ronson and Woody Woodmansey frozen in time wearing clothes that still look futuristic now and playing music that literally changed a generation. Fantastic stuff, as is the rest of the exhibition which I for one cannot recommend highly enough. Rare footage, handwritten lyrics, extraordinary costumes, photographs, memorabilia and more - it was so good I'm considering going again. If you're wondering about attending then make the effort - it really is worth it!

This weekend's two Upper Cut shows both got off to bad starts, but both ended up being good shows. I guess this is better than them starting well but ending badly? Saturday saw our first visit to The Kings Arms in Harefield this year - this is generally a good gig for us and as I say this turned out to be the case this time although it wasn't without it's problems. If you were to look down upon the pub it's probably best described as 'U-shaped' - the stage is along one side of the U (if you see what I mean) and is set back into the wall. It's also not very big - there only room for Roger's drums (and indeed Roger himself) and mine and Terry's amplifiers, with me and the two Terrys down on the floor in front of the drums along with the P.A. system. This means that (a) it's all but impossible for Roger to hear the vocals, (b) it's hard for me and Terry to get to our amplifiers if they need adjusting, (c) because the room is long and thin if people dance then you stand a fair chance of getting a microphone in the face and (d) there probably is a (d) but it's time that I stopped moaning. Our first set sounded rough with more than a few mistakes from the band - Roger described it as feeling as though he was playing in a cupboard and that he hadn't heard a single word that Terry had sung - but the second sounded better (probably because people had moved around to watch the band and so had soaked up some of the sound) and our performance improved immeasurably with much merriment and encores a-plenty. And yesterday's show in Colnbrook at Ye Olde George Inn also got off to a shaky start as the power went off a few seconds into our first number 'How Come'. The barman came over with an extension cable and the words 'we've had a few problems with those sockets' - with the power restored we carried on more-or-less where we'd left off the night before and played well from then on in. As we were doing three sets we were able to include a few songs that don't get aired too often which resulted in the odd mad moment here and there but generally sounded good, and it was nice to be able to try a few different things. At the end a chap came over and asked how much money we'd want to play for another hour - now that's something that doesn't happen too often! We didn't do it of course - 'leave them wanting more' as someone once said...

There's just time to mention that Louder Then War have reviewed Ruts D.C.'s new album and our London and Bearded Theory shows - all good stuff (I wouldn't be mentioning them here if they weren't!) although I must admit that it's still a bit weird to read my name in connection with the band - I wonder if I'll ever get used to it? And I'm making another appearance in the big headphones on Music Scene Investigation this coming Sunday, which always a good thing to do. Excellent!

Television's over

Another gig-less weekend means another chance to watch television - normally I'd be moaning (as usual!) by now but since this week saw the first screening of a new documentary on one of The Who's finest works 'Quadrophenia' I'm nowhere near as miserable as I might normally be. The show in question was 'Quadrophenia: Can You See The Real Me?' and I'm pleased to say that it more than lived up to expectations, with new interviews from Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey alongside archive contributions from John Entwistle and Keith Moon and some astonishing hitherto unseen footage (by me at least) of the band playing at The Belle Vue in Manchester in 1973 among the highlights of an absolutely excellent programme. It was particularly interesting to hear the multi-track recordings of the original album in isolation, with Entwistle's horns shadowing Townshend's guitar part on '5.15' and Daltery's end-of-the-World scream at the end of 'Love Reign O'er Me' both sounding even more incredible than ever. Around half of the album received a song-by-song analysis - one can only hope that there's a longer Director's Cut of the show that looks at the whole album in the same detailed way. Great stuff, as was the previous weekend's 'David Bowie and the Story Of Ziggy Stardust' which as it's name suggests took a look at Bowie's classic album. Once again contemporary interviews with some of the key contributors sat alongside some fine archive footage, with The Spiders From Mars (featuring the mighty Mick Ronson on lead guitar) sounding as great as ever. Maybe staying in watching television isn't so bad after all?


And maybe things are starting to improve a bit generally, as I managed to get out and about with a guitar in my hand this week - albeit for rehearsals rather than shows, but at least this means that there are some gigs on the horizon. Monday evening saw The Flying Squad get together for the first time this year (well, there's no need to rush into things now is there?) as we have a show coming up supporting The Clashed at Tropic At Ruislip at the end of August. As expected there were a few cobwebs to blow away but all things considered the band sounded good, running through songs from previous sets as well as a few new numbers. And on Wednesday I met up with T.V. Smith to discuss tactics for two festival shows that we're playing this summer (more about them in the not-too-distant future) and to look at possible additions to our repertoire. It was good to be working with both acts again, and it was good to get along to the afore-mentioned Ruislip venue on Friday evening to see Who tribute band Who's Who. Heavy hay fever meant that my eyes and ears weren't at their best (I often get earwax problems when I get a cold or hay fever, and this was one of those times; itchy eyes are of course a more general symptom of the condition) so maybe my thoughts that the band took a bit of time to get going sound-wise are due to me not hearing properly rather than their performance - either way the audience seemed somewhat subdued for the first part of their 2 hour show, although by the end things were suitably raucous all round. An enjoyable evening.


I've got a gig next weekend. Time to play the guitar rather than watching other people playing it on stage or on television. Good.

Who'll love Aladdin Sane?

Hmm... I don't remember this photo being taken. And who's that guy on the far left?

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the Balcony Shirts Christmas card. And why not?

It's been very - make that very - busy in the shop, not least on Saturday when your humble narrator found himself to be more than a little worse for wear after a night at the General Elliot watching The Good Old Boys. My condition had little to do with the band (who gave a typically excellent performance) but was more to do with the oceanic quantity of lager consumed by myself and East - perhaps his one word text message to me the next morning said all that needs to be said... and we've continued to be busy all week, which is good news in these troubled times.

The Upper Cut played at The Load Of Hay on Sunday for the first time since my birthday back in July. From my point of view we took a while to get going, with our first set feeling a little bit too much like hard work although the audience reaction suggested otherwise. Pete from Awaken joined us on guitar for several numbers, and with us being called back for several encores even I had cheered up (a bit) by the end of the show. We're playing again on Boxing Night at a secret regulars / invite only show in Uxbridge - it's like being in the Pistols!

And following on from the last posting's YouTube-fest a momentous televisual event occurred during a Top Of The Pops Christmas special broadcast on Wednesday evening, when footage of David Bowie performing 'The Jean Jenie' was shown for the first time since 1973. It was thought to have been lost forever thanks to the BBC's ridiculous policy of wiping recordings, but cameraman John Henshall kept a copy so that he could show how a camera lens that he'd developed was working. The story even made the evening news, and you can see why here - it features Bowie and The Spiders From Mars playing live, with the band in their glam rock finery and the mighty Mick Ronson at his magnificent best. Boy could he play guitar. It doesn't get much better than this - but I wonder what else Mr. Henshall has in his loft?

Well that clip is enough to give me a happy Christmas! I hope that you have one too.