The calm before the storm?

Over the past few days I have, among other things and in no particular order :-

Worked at the Balcony Shirts t-shirt emporium in Uxbridge.

Spent an evening with Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes at The 12 Bar Club in London's Denmark Street during which Barnsley punks System Of Hate played an agreeably noisy set.

Rehearsed with Ruts D.C. at The Music Complex in Deptford. 

Played 'Sweet Home Chicago' and 'Why Me' with Big Al, Pete and the house band at The Three Wishes jam night in Edgware.

Fought off a painful sinus problem. Hopefully.

Watched The Good Old Boys play a fine set at The General Eliott in Uxbridge.

Seem Lead Shot Hazard (who feature Balcony Shirts t-shirt printer Dave on bass guitar) come third in a Battle Of The Bands competition at Brunel University, also in Uxbridge.

And tomorrow I'm setting out with Ruts D.C. to support The Damned on their British tour :- 

- oh yes!

If you're going to a show then I'll see you there...

At the edge

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...

Train in vain

Well with the Damned / Ruts D.C. tour approaching there seems to be more and more things to do and less and less opportunities for blogging - so it's just a short missive this time :-

Friday night saw Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks visit The Crown in Cowley. The band had played there while I was away with Ruts D.C. earlier this year - Pete was on guitar then (and he was with the band again the next night at The Paddington Packet Boat which peculiarly is only a few hundred yards down the road from this venue) and he joined us for a few songs at this show, which took a while to get going but developed into a highly enjoyable gig. With Dave away elsewhere Mac Poole did a fine job depping on drums, and the band must have done something right as we were offered four more gigs next year. We're playing there on Christmas Eve too - excellent.

Back to Zero played their first gig since August on Saturday, at The Railway Hotel in Southend. Now I for one had been looking forward to this for quite some time, and while I won't go so far as to say that it was a let down it wasn't quite as enjoyable as it might have been. Maybe I'd been looking forward to it a bit too much, if you know what I mean? When we arrived Daddy Long Legs were roaring through a splendid set of supercharged garage-y blues in front of a fair-sized audience for a Saturday afternoon; things were obviously overrunning a bit as they were still playing as our stage time of half past four came and went, but no one seemed to be too concerned. We were due to play two sets, the first consisting of covers and the second of original songs - the first set was a bit of a struggle but the second really came together, to the extent that we could have done an encore - but suddenly time was tight with The 45s due on at 7.45. Shame - I was really enjoying our show. They played well, very tight and slick - but am I the only person that thinks that covering songs like 'I'm A Man' and 'In The Midnight Hour' can be a risky business? Whilst they sound good in themselves they can sometimes serve to show that the band's own songs are somewhat lacking can't they?

And last night I joined the afore-mentioned Big Al and Pete at The Three Wishes in Edgware for the regular Monday jam night. With Andy from the house band on bass and Howard on drums we played 'Born To Run' and 'Peter Gunn' with Al blowing up a storm (literally!) on saxophone and the audience reacting as if we were the headline band - let's hope they're all there on Friday when the band will be playing our full show there... 

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...

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.

Be seeing you

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.

Flight of the rat

It's Monday evening and I'm tired - methinks it's time for an early night. Still it's been a busy few days in mad-guitar-land :-

Sometime mid-afternoon on Wednesday I received a phone call from Upper Cut drummer Roger asking me if I'd like to go with him to see Deep Purple at The Roundhouse. Roger used to roadie for the band back in the day - I thought about it for a good second or two before saying yes... we arrived just in time to get a couple of drinks before classical music played over the P.A. system, the lights went down and the band started with what I assume was a new song. 'Into The Fire' and 'Hard Lovin' Man' followed - I last saw them play something like 20 years ago, they sounded great then and they sounded great now. I said a couple of postings ago that I was always a fan of the band, and for me there's something about Deep Purple that I always thought set them apart from many of their contemporaries. They were always amazing musicians, and time certainly hasn't dimmed their powers - I'd not seen Steve Morse before and his fabled alternate picking really was something to behold. I found it impossible not to enjoy 'Lazy', 'Space Truckin'', 'Perfect Strangers' - and let's face it, 'Smoke On the Water' really does have one of the ultimate guitar riffs doesn't it? And it was great to have a word with Roger Glover afterwards - I've told so many people the story of him playing at The Dolphin with us a couple of weeks ago!

Thursday it was off to The Purcell Room on London's South Bank to see Viv Albertine. Arguably it would be hard to find a greater contrast to the previous evening's entertainment - but I've never been one for only liking one type of music, or not liking something because I like something else if you know what I mean. Ms. Albertine certainly looked great (as this clip shows!) and with a band that included two violinists (!) she ran though a compelling set of songs that had the audience - and indeed me - enthralled throughout. Great stuff.

Ruts D.C. played their last show until the Damned tour support in November and December on Friday evening, at The Exchange in Bristol. A raucous performance was bought to an abrupt halt a few seconds into 'Staring At The Rude Boys' when Segs was hit in the face by his microphone. We restarted the song a few seconds later and the same thing happened again - 'once is a mistake, twice is a choice' as the old saying goes, and Segsy wasn't happy, even getting into the audience to try to find the person or persons responsible. I remember things like this happening all too often back in punkier times, and I guess it could then have been put down to youthful exuberance (or immaturity!) but with at least some of the audience being old enough to be grandparents it's a real shame that it still happens now. It certainly soured an otherwise enjoyable show, but with the afore-mentioned Damned dates on the horizon the band is in an optimistic mood and is not about to let something as daft as this change that. Well, I'm certainly not!

Me on guitar,
Rat Scabies on drums.
Oh yes!

I got home around 4am; 5 hours later I was in Balcony Shirts saying things like 'this is the sort of day that takeaway coffee was invented for'. No time to worry about that now though, as it's off to Wealdstone Football Club (better known to many as Tropic At Ruislip) for the 6th Annual Paul Fox Social Club. With both the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines off due to 'planned engineering works' numbers were down a bit on last year's gathering, but there were more than enough people there to make the evening work. I made a guest appearance with The Members - playing 'The Sound Of The Suburbs' with Rat Scabies on drums was certainly something for me to remember - and I'm told that the evening raised several thousand pounds for The Michael Sobell Hospice, which can only be good news if you think about it.

The next morning I was at RnR Studios by 10am for a Back To Zero rehearsal. We'd not played together for several months, and with a show coming up at The Railway Hotel in Southend next month a get-together was definitely overdue - pleasingly it only took a couple of songs for us to get back into the swing of things, which was good news as we are obliged to play two sets at the gig and so are adding several cover versions to our repertoire alongside a new song or two. We've got another rehearsal booked before the Southend appearance as well as a planned recording session so hopefully we should be on good form for the gig. 
I don't mind admitting that I was flagging a bit by the end of the session, and when I got home went back to bed for a couple of hours. I'm sure I didn't have to do that when I was younger! Ah well... still I was sufficiently revitalised to return to Tropic At Ruislip for a blues evening that featured Big Dez and Storm Warning - both bands played well but once again there wasn't much in the way of audience numbers which was a real shame. I guess people aren't too keen on 'rail replacement buses'? 

I've got no shows this week so I suppose there will be plenty of time to catch up on some other things... whatever they are...