Everybody Hurts

It has been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled... well maybe not rock 'n' rolled exactly, but it's been a month since I last wrote anything here. That is quite a long time isn't it?

After the 'my computer's at the menders for ages' saga sometime near the end of last year I mused in these hallowed pages as to whether I might have, for want of a better term, lost the blogging habit. I'm beginning to think that I just might have done just that although I guess that the fact that this posting exists rather contradicts that thought. I've kept my Facebook page updated, but that's 'easier' to do isn't it? Maybe I don't have very much to say for myself at the moment? Perhaps I'm busier than I used to be? It's probably a bit of both... or maybe it's the post-tour crash that I didn't think was going to happen? On the surface at least I didn't think that it had effected me too much - I felt much more obviously upset by the catastrophic Upper Cut performance referred to in the last posting for example - but maybe I was just delaying the inevitable.

It's been very busy in Balcony Shirts, to such an extent that I've just worked 7 days in a row and am likely to be in there for a fair bit of this week too. There's nothing that puts 19 shows with The Stranglers into perspective quite like this sort of conversation :- 

'So d'you print t-shirts in here then?' 
'Yes, yes we do - we're a t-shirt printing shop.' 
'So can you print me one then?' 
'Well we can have a go. What would you like on it?' 
'I dunno - what do you think?'

As you might well imagine at that moment I've got more than a few ideas as to what they should have written on their chest, but I've been known to say something like 'well I'd have a picture of The Who (or whoever - it literally makes no difference who...) from sometime in the 1960s (or whenever - it literally makes no difference when...) but I doubt that's the sort of thing you'd like'. After that anything can happen.

Ruts DC have played a couple of shows since last we spoke - our performance at The Grand in Clitheroe was thought by us to be below par although thankfully many were they who assured us that it wasn't (it's better that it's that way round don't you think?) while a boisterous gig at The Zikenstock Festival near Lille in France saw much stage diving (they like that sort of thing out there!) and general jollity all round. Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have been out and about too - highlights include a show at The White Swan in St. Albans which was curtailed after only 2 songs of the second set to allow those present to watch the Joshua / Klitschko boxing World title fight, while last weekend's 40th birthday party gig had your humble narrator musing to himself as to whether or not there might be some nice-looking young ladies present, then realising with some amusement that considering 40 years old to be 'young' meant that he / I am now officially 'old'. And it that all wasn't weird enough I saw Bob Dylan at The Bournemouth International Centre in (you've guessed it!) Bournemouth - his Bobness rarely if ever does what might be expected of him, and a set where he either played grand piano (often standing up) or wielded a straight mic stand in the slightly-disturbing manner of a not-very-good Rod Stewart tribute act without touching a guitar once wasn't necessarily what I for one would have predicted. Add to that the fact that the set mostly consisted of jazz standards (I believe he's just released an album of them) like 'Autumn Leaves' and 'That Old Black Magic' with the odd Bob classic thrown in here and there (often radically re-arranged - many didn't seem to recognise 'Tangled Up In Blue' until the title line, and I don't think many got 'Blowin' In The Wind' until it was all but over, if at all) and you had a show that more than a few audience members were none too happy with. Me? I loved it. Of course I did - he's a contrary old bugger, but all the better for it in my not-so-humble opinion.

I wouldn't mind ending up like that. Maybe I have ended up like that? Oh well - more whining self pity and non-crises again another time. Maybe even sometime soon...

Waiting for the man

Well I'm sure that you've heard by now that Lou Reed has died. It's almost impossible to imagine how radical The Velvet Underground must have sounded when they first emerged in the mid-sixties - after all they still sound ahead of their time to me now over 45 years later. There's an often-repeated adage made by Brian Eno that everyone who bought the first Velvet Underground album started a band (well, I certainly did!) and whilst it's a wonderfully romantic notion - and it just could be true! - it's also a measure of Reed's influence on pretty much all rock music (or at least the stuff worth hearing!) since then. As a result it's perhaps easy to overlook his subsequent solo material, but albums like 'Transformer' and 'Berlin' stand every bit as tall as those legendary Velvets recordings. He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work that will continue to inspire future musicians and artists for generations to come.

Meanwhile with no gigs of my own over the last week or so I've had chance to get out and about to catch a few live shows, although somewhere along the line I've managed to hurt my back (Ouch! This 'geting old' lark isn't always much fun!) which is rather annoying. Anyway Thursday evening The 100 Club hosted a night of acts once associated with Stiff Records featuring The Members, Department S and Ed Tudor-Pole. When I arrived E. T.-P. was already putting his all into his performance, his wild 'n' wacky stage persona every bit as over the top as every other time that I've seen him. Department S were up next, with an excellent set of old and new material which went down exceedingly well with all concerned, while the Members (joined by original guitarist Nigel Bennett for the latter half of their show) sounded as solid and reliable as ever. A good night, as was the following evening at Tropic At Ruislip where Larry Miller gave a splendid performance, ably supported by Gary Moore tribute band Moore Or Less. The Miller guitar sounded as mighty as ever, and his increasingly bizarre between-song-comments had more than a few audience members smiling, often in disbelief... and there were more than a few audience members smiling in disbelief last night at The Horns in Watford where bass legend Norman Watt-Roy played a solo gig, and was joined for the last four songs by the mighty Wilko Johnson. Things had been progressing well up until that point, with Norman's playing as mind-boggling as ever and the band on fine form, if a little too jazzy here and there for my not-very jazzy tastes; however as soon as Wilko hit the stage the intensity in the room and indeed on the stage jumped by several hundred percent and the audience erupted in a frenzy of phone photography and filming (as these clips show!) He played "Everybody's Carrying A Gun', 'Casting My Spell On You' (it's been a wee while since I've heard that one - good choice!) 'Out On the Western Plain' and the encore of 'Roxette', and every moment was one to savour. And if that wasn't enough my new friend Pam the landlady has given The Upper Cut a gig next year and wants to book Ruts D.C. - excellent!

I'm back on the boards with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks this weekend, at The Chippenham Hotel in Maida Vale on Friday followed by a return visit to The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Saturday. And I'm up early for a Back To Zero rehearsal on Sunday morning - but more about that next time.

You upset me baby

It's been something of a 'bits-and-pieces-week' since last we spoke...

The last time Ruts D.C. visited The Music Complex in Deptford was to rehearse for last month's show at The Underworld in Camden; rather than busy ourselves with serious work as our 'big London gig' was on the immediate horizon we chose to attempt most if not all of our set in a rockabilly style before going to the pub opposite. Last Tuesday's gathering was a bit different, as with no gigs for a while we decided to get together to look at some other songs from the band's back catalogue as well as trying out some ideas for new numbers. Well that was the plan - what actually happened was that decided to play a few songs from our set in the style of The Upsetters (well, we'd jammed a few chords that we thought sounded a bit like them and then found ourselves playing 'West One (Shine On Me)' in a similar way. Strange but true. Incidentally if you follow this link you'll see the afore-mentioned song from our Southampton show a few weeks ago - watch the chap in front of me during the guitar solo and you'll see him making a well-known gesture at me throughout. I didn't think it was that bad!) before... no, not going to the pub (we did that after the session!) but actually getting down to what we were there for. Many an-idea was tried, arrangements were altered, and we all felt that progress was made. Another similar session is planned for the not-too-distant future - more news as and when I have it, as they say.

Well so far so good - except that by the time I got home I wasn't feeling too well. We'd only had a couple of drinks (honest!) so that wasn't the cause; however after an early night I woke up the next day feeling as though I hadn't been to sleep, all heavy limbs and heavier head. I managed to stumble through a day at Balcony Shirts before going home and falling asleep for an hour-and-a-bit. Rock'n'roll eh? Still I felt a bit better so made it back into Uxbridge to meet Scott from the shop at Harris + Hoole where he was due to play a short acoustic set with your humble narrator joining him for a couple of songs. When I got there a chap who's name escapes me (Sorry! But I'd not been well!) was playing some difficult sounding jazz piano (I'm not entirely sure that there's any easy sounding jazz piano, but that's another story. Mind you, what do I know?!?) which sounded very appropriate in the context of the venue and indeed the evening. Next up was John Napier who I first met back in the 1980s when his band Hector's House played a few shows with The Price. I always thought that he wrote good songs back then and if his set here was anything to go by he still does. Scott then played a couple of songs before asking me to join him for 'Ain't No Pleasing You' and 'Taarabt's Too Good For You', both of which went well not least considering that the extent of our rehearsal was to decide on keys and talk through the songs when I arrived at the coffee shop. It could all have gone horribly wrong but thankfully it didn't. Last on was R.W. Hedges, a good friend of Scott's who did very well in the Mojo magazine 'New Voice' competition a couple of years ago. He'd put the evening together and finished proceedings very well. All in all a highly enjoyable evening in an excellent venue - let's hope they put more musical events on there in the future.

Fridy evening saw The Upper Cut return to The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham for the first time in quite a while. I took the opportunity to try out my newly-acquired Marshall combo as mentioned in these hallowed pages last week - I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to get to grips with it during the week (I've not been well you know!) but overall I think I've made a good purchase as it certainly sounded good where I was standing. It's definitely a 'rockier' sounding amplifier than my Fender (as you would expect) and to be honest it might be a bit much for The Upper Cut but I might give it another go this weekend (we're at Patrick's Bar in Crystal Palace this coming Friday) and see how it sounds. The show was a good one too, with everyone playing well and ending with Sue the landlady offering us money to play for longer. This happened in Colnbrook last month too - maybe we should just charge more and then play for longer?

After a Saturday in the shop (not too busy but busy enough) I had what felt like my first Saturday night off in ages - at last a chance to catch up with things that need doing and maybe even have an early night given that I'd not been feeling well earlier in the week... obviously I didn't do anything of the sort as I went to The Crown And Treaty to see punk covers band No Lip. They feature my old mate Pete Bradshaw on guitar (back in the day he was known to many as 'Suts' after attempting to adopt the stage name Peter Sutcliffe - they were odd times...) and did a pretty good job of summoning up the spirit of '77. And Pete and myself did a pretty good job of drinking far too many drinks after the show. Well - Saturday night out and all that...

And last night it was back to The Three Wishes in Edgware for the the Monday night jam session. An enjoyable evening all round, and it's a regular event that's well worth a visit - you can find their Facebook page here if you're interested. I'm still a bit surprised that I like it as much as I do...

And if you're in the Hayes area this Saturday evening Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks have a short notice gig at The Wishing Well (it's on the Uxbridge Road opposite the police station - you can do your own 'that'll be handy for when the fight breaks out'-type punchlines if you like...) which should be an interesting evening, not least because they've only just started putting bands on there. Let's hope there's an audience!

Autumn leaves

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from a chap called Mark Moody who'd picked up my card 'ages ago from somewhere' and who was enquiring about the possibility of me giving his son Joe some guitar lessons. We got talking and fairly soon it was obvious by the number of 'I'm sure I know you' moments that we had quite a lot in common, not least when he mentioned that he had a Bartram guitar that he'd purchased from Thames Valley Guitars back in the 1980's. This was one of the Uxbridge musical equipment shops that my fellow Blue Five member Pete a.k.a. Voltarol used to run back in those dim and distant days (he also ran Pete's Gig Shop among others) when his many and varied musical endeavours included promoting jazz gigs at, of all places, The Load Of Hay. When Mark and Joe turned up the other night for a 'let's see if I can help you' meeting (it turned out that Mark had seen me playing in The Others which was the band I had before The Price! Oo-er!) they bought with them the afore-mentioned guitar (and a very fine instrument it is too) and the poster that you can now see on the above left, which had languished in the guitar case since way back when. I sent it by e-mail to Voltarol who reacted with great enthusiasm, and you can see his thoughts and memories here, along with some tremendous photos from the time. I went to most if not all of the shows (I definitely remember the bloke with the concertina!) as it was a chance to hear music that was somewhat outside of the mainstream at the time, which in my World is always a good thing; with that in mind I've included this Autumn's 'Acts Less Ordinary' schedule at said venue on the above right hand side - there's some great stuff coming up, and since the excellent David Bristow played to an audience of less than a dozen on the Sunday just gone if you can make it along to any of the shows it would be good to see you there.

If nothing else this shows that in addition to being two halves of one of the World's least likely guitar duos both Pete and myself are bonkers enough to think that promoting minority interest music in a back street pub is somehow a good idea - which reminds me, I'm playing with The Ali Mac Band at Tropic At Ruislip this coming Sunday evening - it's the first Sunday night gig there for a while, and co-incidentally there's nothing on at The Load Of Hay that night...