'We're a garage band, we come from garageland...'

In a week that saw the extraordinary news that Wilko Johnson is 'free of cancer' the music world lost reggae singer extraordinaire John Holt, glam rock hero Alvin Stardust, Chas & Dave drummer Mick Burt, 'Baker Street' sax man Raphael Ravenscroft and Cream bass legend Jack Bruce. Talk about not getting something for nothing eh?

On Saturday night Ruts D.C. headlined The Garage in Islington. We gathered at The Music Complex in Deptford on Friday to rehearse for the show - our time together began in the cafe opposite for what Segs dubbed a 'bonding breakfast' and a tactical discussion. Sometime in the next few hours we also found time to visit a secondhand clothing shop (I bought a black jacket which I wore next night at the show) and a Vietnamese restaurant (sweet and sour tofu - excellent!) as well as putting together a 75 minute set which included 'Different View' for the first time since 1982. I remember seeing them play the song several times and have always thought it to be one of the band's best songs so it was great to see it on the setlist at last. Needless to say we then repaired to The Little Crown for a couple of pints of their always - wonderful Guinness, during which Segs and myself suddenly remembered that we'd had a conversation with U.K. Subs guitarist Jet a few weeks earlier when we'd discussed the idea of him playing with us at the gig; text messages were sent, phone calls were made and a plan came together...

4.30pm the next day and we've just soundchecked with the afore - mentioned 'Different View', it's sounding great and spirits are high. We've got Bob behind the mixing desk, Owen is stage managing the evening and we've finished well within our allotted time. But surely we've forgotten something... as if by magic another guitarist appears, plugs into my spare amplifier (a Fender Blues Junior in case you were wondering; I'm using my 'usual' Blues Deluxe) and within seconds we're blasting through 'In A Rut' and sounding, well, like we usually do but with Jet joining us on guitar - in other words, pretty good!  
After meeting up with various people at The Wig And Gown (an excellent punky pub just along the Holloway Road) it was back in time to catch most of the set from opening act The Duel, who sounded the best that I'd seen them for quite a while. Evil Blizzard were up next - with only 30 minutes to work with (I'm sure that they've got songs longer than that!) they got straight into things and left many - an audience member looking bewildered by the end of their first song. Surreal moment followed surreal moment - at one point they even had someone mopping up on the stage! - and I'm sure they had five bass players instead of the usual four at one point. Great stuff, and not an easy act to follow. We'd better get on with it then... and get on with it we did. Even though I say so myself we started well and got better as the show went on, with the only hiccup being a fault with Segs's bass during 'SUS' (Dave stated 'I bet you never thought you'd hear a drum solo at a Ruts show' then proceeded to play one!) Once that was fixed we carried on where we left off, with 'Different View' going down particularly well. In no time at all we're at the end of the set, and Jet joins us for a thunderous 'In A Rut' that brings the proverbial house down. We're on a curfew (there was a club night after our gig) but there's still time for an encore of 'Something That I Said' and 'Society' to finish a truly memorable show. Afterwards there time for a few drinks and to chat to quite a few people, after which we return to The Wig And Gown for, er, a few drinks and, er, to chat to quite a few people - which explains why I didn't get this written up yesterday. Well, I wasn't feeling too good...

But I felt better after reading this review from the always - excellent Elvis In The Clouds blog. Thank you Mr. Presley!

Reggae Punk Mondays at The 12 Bar Club

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

'Monday Monday, so good to me...'

Commercial time - following on from the successful club nights hosted at Madame Jojos last year the first night of a 13 week run of Reggae Punk Mondays takes place on the 10th February at The 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street London. In addition to performances from The Duel and Freedom Faction, Ruts D.C. will be playing our first British gig of 2014. It's a new departure for the band - an acoustic show. Dave Ruffy, Segs and myself will (hopefully!) be playing a new song or two in our set alongside older Ruts and Ruts D.C. material, Segs will be DJing throughout the evening and the whole thing kicks off at around 8pm. A fine evening is in prospect, and with the whole thing being streamed live on the Internet (details on how you can connect with this are at FFRUK - it's no good asking me how to do it I'm afraid!) you can watch it in the comfort of your own home if you can't make it along. Oh yes!

Fight for your right to party

Another busy few days then...

On Thursday work continued on the Back To Zero album. Not for us a multi-million pound budget in a huge expensive recording studio; oh no - myself and Squirrel overdubbed our guitar and bass parts in his kitchen as Sam sat at the kitchen table manning his computer. Isn't technology amazing? We've now recorded all the backing tracks and even though I say so myself it's sounding really good and I for one can't wait to hear the end result.

That evening I found myself at The 12 Bar Club with John King, Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes and his mate Laurent. After a suitably entertaining evening myself and Esso left in good time (we've both missed our last train home after similar evenings at said watering hole) only to be thwarted by problems on The Metropolitan Line. We sat on the (stationary) train for what felt like ages listening to 'we're being held at a red signal' / 'a train up ahead has broken down' / 'there are trains backed up along the track' - type announcements - still it gave us even more time to put the world to rights...

I spent part of a rather bleary Friday running through some songs for the weekend's Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks gigs - somewhat worryingly I found myself with more than a few 'how does the middle bit go?' moments when I played the songs - maybe it was because I was tired or maybe I wasn't quite on the ball? Either way I fell asleep mid-afternoon - not something that I like to do, but sometimes you just have to don't you? Well it had been a long day on Thursday and I was aware that the next couple of days were going to be very busy; also my back was still playing up a bit. Not good!

I'd not been to The Chippenham Hotel in Maida Hill before - according to it's website Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band The 101ers used to play there regularly, and I must say that looking at it on Friday evening you didn't need to use much imagination to see that it could well have been quite a thriving venue back in the day. It's still a pretty good place now, and although there could have been more people in attendance those who were there were an enthusiastic bunch with a fair amount of dancing and general jollity all round. A good gig, made even better by the fact that we were rebooked for January 25th at the end of the evening. Excellent!

There were a lot more people at The Dolphin in Uxbridge the next night - when we arrived the party was in full swing, with plenty of young people looking as though they'd been there for quite a while... I wouldn't say that the atmosphere could have been called hostile but I definitely got the feeling that things weren't quite right. Then again our first set was well received, and I began to think that I was worried about nothing - but three songs into our second set I saw a couple of likely lads squaring up to each other at the bar just a few feet to my right. There were a couple of young ladies trying to separate them and maybe it was all going to be ok - but no, the shouty guy on the left won't let it go, I started to think that maybe I should say to Al that we should stop playing as sometimes these things get worse if people can't hear themselves - but then again if we stop it draws attention to the situation which could accelerate things... suddenly Noel the guv'nor stepped in and removed the shouty guy from the premises in no uncertain terms. It takes a lot of guts to do something like that in my opinion (like all six foot tall men I'm a complete wimp!) and Noel did it in seconds. He definitely knows how to run a pub! Thankfully the rest of our show proceeded without incident, and if anything the band played even better than they did the night before. Good!

It was an early start for your humble narrator on Sunday - after three late nights in a row (and Saturday in the shop) I was feeling rather bleary, and with a 10am kick off to contend with things were only ever going to get blearier. When Back To Zero arrived at Mushroom Studios there seemed to be some confusion as to whether we were booked in or not, but thankfully room 2 was available so we set to work preparing for this coming Saturday's show at The Railway Hotel in Southend. Over the next four hours we worked up a set of BTZ songs and an eclectic selection of cover versions, and by the end of the session pronounced ourselves pleased with our efforts. An amusing moment occurred when Barrie Masters of local heroes Eddie and The Hot Rods suddenly appeared in the room with us - he'd been told that Squirrel was there and as he hadn't seen him to talk to for many years he'd called in to say hello. Good job we hadn't been playing one of his band's songs eh?!?

And last night it was up to Madame JoJo's in Soho for the last of the Monday punk and reggae nights - myself and Esso got stranded in The Ship for rather longer than we thought we would meaning that The Duel were already on stage when we arrived. They were sounding good and there were plenty of people in the club - these nights seem to have been a success, which can only be a good thing for live music in my not-so-humble opinion. We left as Segs was getting going with his DJ set - well after Thursday night we were taking no chances...