'In a bar Johnny drinks, Johnny drinks Johnnie Walker...'

Jon 'Fat' Beast has died. I first met him when he gave The Price a gig at one of the Timebox nights that he was running at The Bull And Gate in Kentish Town - he liked our band and even offered to release a single by us on Timebox Records. We saw him at many gigs over the next few years, maybe the most memorable of which was when we supported Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine at The Guildhall in Gloucester back in 1991. They recorded the promo film for 'Bloodsport For All' that night - he's not in that but he's certainly in this clip of 'Surfin' USM' recorded the same year. All together now - 'you fat bastid, you fat bastid...'

In the meantime, that was the birthday that was... actually on the day itself (Thursday in case you were wondering) I did, well, nothing much. I spent much of my time listening to The Who (always a good move don't you think?) and playing guitar, and didn't leave the house until I went to the local Indian takeaway where I bought myself a vegetable Biriani. Decadent Days eh?!? By the time the evening's gig came around I was half asleep, bored and desperate for something to do - they say that the most tiring thing in the world is doing nothing don't they? Well they - whoever 'they' are - just might be right on that one... the evening's show with Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks at The Sunningdale Lounge went well, even if it was a somewhat unlikely setting for your humble narrator to spend his birthday evening at. Still at was back to more familiar territory the next night, when The Upper Cut played The Dolphin in Uxbridge. A raucous performance began a little after 9.30pm with 'Substitute' and finished well after midnight with 'Stay With Me' (we had an interval, we didn't play all the way through!) and since we've played there on or around July 24th for the last couple of years I'll be doing my best to book the band in there again next year. Afterwards drinks were drunk and I got home sometime around 3 o'clock in the morning amid some confusion. A splendid evening - and did myself and Huggy really plot some 30th-years-since-our-first-show Price gigs next year? Yes, I believe that we did... 

Given the previous evening's antics it was something of a miracle that I made it to Balcony Shirts just as Dave was opening the front door at 9am. Vast application of coffee and fried eggs sandwiches followed, and all things considered I made it through a fairly busy day reasonably unscathed. From there it was off to The Swan in Iver, where Big Al and the band played an outdoor show as part of the annual family fun day. We were on at half past six - as our set progressed it felt as though rain could be a possibility, which as we were playing in the garden with no roof above us could have been something of a dangerous situation for us to be in. Thankfully the weather stayed good and our show went ahead with no problems, after which we saw a few songs by local duo 2Tone before heading off to Go Sing in West Drayton for far too much Chinese food. Excellent!

And last night I saw Television at The Shepherds Bush Empire. To describe their debut album 'Marquee Moon' as 'a classic' barely does it justice - it is quite simply one of the best albums of all time. But more about them in a minute - support came from Louise Distras, who seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment. Her set was well received by the assembled multitude, and her last song 'The Hand You Hold' had more than a few people singing along, a sure sign that she's getting through. And Television were absolutely terrific, with Tom Verlaine as unconventional as ever (I don't remember the last time that I saw a frontman ask for less light on stage!) and the band sounding great from start to finish. 'Marquee Moon' was featured in it's entirety and sounded as timelessly brilliant as ever as did their first single 'Little Johnny Jewel', while the final encore of 'Psychotic Reaction' reminded us all of where all this stuff came from in the first place. A fine evening - and not a bad birthday present to myself don't you think?!

T.V. on TV

I don't know about you (obviously!) but I've been really enjoying the BBC re-broadcasts of 'Top Of The Pops' from way back in 1976. I'm surprised at how well I remember some of the shows - I used to watch them every week in the increasingly vain hope of seeing something interesting, a rather rare sight since the glory days of glam rock a few years earlier. Easily the best clip so far has been Eddie And The Hot Rods playing 'Get Out Of Denver' live in the studio - but all of that is about to change as the shows now move into 1977, a landmark year for rock music as punk rock reared it's spiky head. On BBC4 this Friday at 9 pm 'Top Of The Pops : The Story Of 1977' focuses on the year that the likes of The Jam and The Stranglers made their first appearances on the show, and when people like The Tom Robinson Band and The Saints made people like me go 'ARGH!' (or words to that effect). I particularly remember a blistering live version of 'Lights Out' by Dr. Feelgood (not exactly punk I know, but it was my first sighting of then-new guitarist Gypie Mayo) all but blowing the roof off the studio. The documentary also features interviews with the likes of Paul Cook and John Otway as well as T.V. Smith and Gaye Advert, which means we should hopefully see 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' and / or 'No Time To Be 21' by The Adverts; then again if we don't see them in this show we should see them sometime in the not-too-distant future when the 1977 shows are repeated.

Good news all round then!

Things can only get better

This posting is several days late - read on to discover why...

It feels like ages since The Chicago Blues Brothers last theatre show - probably because it is ages since the last Chicago Blues Brothers show! - and sadly circumstances mean that there's not likely to be any more in the foreseeable future. However before I get too maudlin let's say that it was a fine night on Friday at The Courtyard Theatre in Hereford, although the day itself was not without incident. I received a text message from Tracy the night before checking what time she was due round the next day (her and dep saxman Bob were coming round to us where Pete and co. were going to pick us up in the minibus) and to say that she wasn't too well and would see how she felt the next day - sad to say she was too unwell to play the show which meant that Pete made an unscheduled appearance on backing vocals. Overall the show was a thoroughly enjoyable affair with the near sellout crowd up for it more-or-less from the first notes of 'Peter Gunn' and the band rising to the occasion accordingly. Well, all the band except me because I played terribly. I'm not sure why - maybe it was an off night or something, but I made a bad error early on (the rising riff in 'I Can't Turn You Loose' is played 3 times there Leigh not once!) and followed it up by a shaky solo in 'She Caught The Katy'. Things got a bit better as the show went on but overall I was disappointed with myself. Bah! In the meantime the rest of the band played brilliantly; Bob hadn't played sax with us for something like 4 years but sounded superb, Dave was as great as ever on trumpet, Chris was depping on keyboards for the absent Ian and sounded excellent and the rhythm section of Squirrel and Marc were as solid as they normally are - all good stuff apart from my hamfisted attempts at the guitar. Oh well... it had been a good journey up there - Friday afternoon journeys can be difficult but ours went very smoothly, with one stop for what I believe is these days referred to as a 'comfort break' - I didn't get one because there was a bloke in there for ages and I got bored waiting 'though from what everyone said facilities were a little 'basic' so maybe it was for the best! Somewhere on the A436 a yellow car had gone through a wall - it looked like it had been there for a while (no airbag - looks like they got away with it' said Bob sternly) to the extent that it almost looked like a work of art. When we got to Hereford I sent a text message to Shirley to tell her that we'd arrived safely - she sent me one back to say that a workman in our road had cut through a cable so we now had no Internet, television or landline phone. Bugger! (Now you know why this posting is late - it was fixed yesterday!) Phil had the P.A. up and running ready for us, and soundcheck went well although it's one of the very few times that I've ever asked for the guitar in my monitor to be turned down. Well, it was deafening! No one else could stand in front of it! It was an 8 o'clock show so there was plenty of time for some food, and for me to meet up with my old musical ally Simon who moved down to the area a year or so ago. I've played in several bands with him over the years, and he was in The Barflies who made their one and only appearance at Big Tel's 50th birthday bash a couple of years ago. It was great to see him again.

As previously observed the show was a very good one aside from my poor playing although quite how a mobility scooter ended up being ridden across the stage by Pete at the start of the second set and by the B.B.'s in 'Funky Nassau' is something of a mystery to me... after the show there was time for a quick drink with Simon who said that he thought I sounded like Buddy Guy! I must play 'terribly' again!

Saturday was the busiest day at Balcony Shirts for a while - it always is when you've been up late...the journey home had been enlivened by a stop at the afore-mentioned 'basic' service station - the guy behind the counter wouldn't let us in as it was late so Pete angrily led us all back to the bus! We stopped at the services down the road instead... oh and the yellow car was still there in the wall. Maybe it was supposed to be there?

After finishing at the shop it was home for a quick snooze (I'm old ok?!?) before getting my guitars together for the evening's Upper Cut gig at After Office Hours in Barnet. As Roger the drummer and myself neared the venue Terry the singer called to say that we were to load in at the front of the pub rather than through the back door like we have done every other time - it was a bit dodgy on the double yellow lines but we got the job done, and all agreed that it was a bit less precarious than using the steps around the back. After setting up Terry the bass observed how there were a lot less people there than we've had for our previous shows there - I guess it's the end of the month and the Christmas credit card bills are in?

9.30 and our first song 'Sweet Soul Music' was greeted by the site of people moving away from the stage and the manageress frantically gesturing to us to turn the volume down; a couple of songs later a glass fell off the P.A. speaker column and broke - it shouldn't have been on there, but maybe we were a bit loud! We limped to the end of set without too many other adverse incidents; the second set was much better with a bit of dancing from the (few) people present, and I played a bit better than I had the night before which was something of a relief.

No gigs this week - time to practice then, or watch telly, make a phone call, go on the internet...