Euroman cometh home

Well, we did it. Nine gigs in nine days (with nein days off!) organised for us by The Muttis Booking Agency in Germany, Poland and Austria followed by a show with The Cockney Rejects at The Dogtown Streetpunk Weekend Festival in Oslo on Saturday. Highlights were many and varied, and since I wrote (well, scribbled some semi-readable notes as we were going over various bumpy roads) what feels like thousands of words while we were on our travels the full story will hopefully appear in these hallowed pages at some point in the not-too-distant-future. In the meantime Dave and Segs posted daily diary entries on the band's website and Facebook page, and I even managed to put a few bits and pieces on my Facebook page too. It really was a great tour - many thanks to Mutti and Katya for their never-ending help, to Vom who put us up after our Dusseldorf gig (we spent much of the night in his subterranean bar!) and to The Tips who played at the afore-mentioned Dusseldorf show (we did 4 shows with them last year, and it was great to catch up with them again) and who very kindly gave me a copy of their excellent new album 'Trippin'' and the t-shirt that I'm wearing as I type this. Great stuff all round.

Now it's back to Blighty and back to basics, with an Upper Cut gig at The Dolphin in Uxbridge on Friday, while Ruts D.C. play POLYFEST II at The Half Moon in Putney on Sunday. In between those two it's the 7th annual Paul Fox Social Club night at Wealdstone Football Club on Saturday night, and on Wednesday I'm hoping to be at The 12 Bar Club for The Fallen Leaves - as I say, it's back to Blighty and back to basics... but before I go here is a clip of Ruts D.C. in Torun a week ago - enjoy!

Euroman cometh

Well it's been a very - make that very - busy few days in Leigh's Mad World Of guitars, to such an extent that between gigging and working in Balcony Shirts I've not really had the time to write a 'proper' blog posting; this means that the full stories of shows by Ruts D.C. in Birmingham, (excellent support from Evil Blizzard and The Black Bombers, my borrowed guitar amp failing just as we were about to go on stage after I got mini-electric shocks from the vocal microphone during the soundcheck) The Upper Cut in Twickenham (cheery drunk girls making the evening all the more worthwhile by outnumbering the cheery drunk boys) and Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks in Sunningdale and Colnbrook (two more good gigs - and Al's already got more than 10 booked for next year!) along with the FFRUK night in Archway (which included a fine set from The Homosexuals) will go largely untold. Ah well.... still it's about to get even busier, as Ruts D.C. start a 10-gigs-in-10-days run of shows in Europe on Thursday. We'll be visiting Germany, Poland and Austria before finishing at The Dogtown Streetpunk Weekend in Oslo with The Cockney Rejects on Saturday 27th September. Full details can be found on the Muttis Booking Agency website - excellent!

Different gear, still speeding...

Of course when I say 'time I got that bloody tax return finished then' what I actually mean is 'time I put all those receipts that have been in those two plastic bags for over a year in some sort of order then attempt to marry them up with bank and credit card statements before wrestling with the online tax return service'. Something like that anyway. Still I got it all done in the end - now I've got to start saving up to pay them...

As mentioned last time this is a relatively quiet week in Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars, although with quite a few gigs on the horizon it's very much a case of 'the calm before the storm'. Good! But I managed to see a couple more bands this week, starting with The Fallen Leaves at The 12 Bar Club. I met up with John King before the gig in The Champion - well to be more accurate I met him outside The Champion, where he was stomping about in a state of no little annoyance. 'There's only one guy serving and it's chaos' roared he, looking suitably disturbed. We decided to have another look inside - there were now two burly-looking chaps behind the bar and an air of calm prevailed so we ordered some drinks; from there we walked down the road to The Blue Posts, then along to The Tottenham... we made it to the 12 Bar Club in time to catch a fiery Fallen Leaves show, although by the time we got there I for one was feeling the effects of the previous few hours. And I certainly felt it the next morning...

Friday night it was time for a visit to Tropic At Ruislip to see Virgil And The Accelerators. I'd seen the band once before (back in April 2012 supporting the mighty Wilko Johnson) and was keen to see how things were developing for them. On Friday's evidence the answer would have to be 'rather well', as the good-sized audience loved the 2 hour show although I have to say that it all went on a bit for me in places - is a 20+ minute guitar solo legal?!? Still the encore medley of 'Thru And Thru' and 'Are You Experienced?' was undeniably impressive, and judging by the number of people who bought CDs and t-shirts the band are definitely going in the right direction. I still say that those solos were a bit long though...

My only gig of this weekend was with The Upper Cut at a private party in Ruislip. We'd not played together for a while so it was good to all get together again - we were playing in a marquee in the back garden of Tracy and Dave's house and overall things went well, with Mark from ME Guitars joining us for a few songs and plenty of dancing and merriment from all concerned. We're playing at The Admiral Nelson in Twickenham this Saturday in the midst of what promises to be a good weekend for your humble narrator, as Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks are also gigging all weekend (I'll be with them on Thursday and Sunday) and Ruts D.C. are at The Hare And Hounds in Birmingham on Friday. And if that wasn't enough Wednesday evening sees the first FFRUK night at The Intrepid Fox (formally The Archway Tavern) in Archway. Segs will be DJ-ing and there are several bands playing - well as I said earlier, things are about to get a lot busier...

'Let me tell you how it will be, it's one for you nineteen for me...'

First things first - the always-excellent Aural Sculptors blog has posted a review of the forthcoming Ruts D.C. album 'Live On Stage', which you can read here. Thanks Adrian - that's another drink I owe you!

Anyway it's Sunday afternoon and as I sit here typing I can still detect the faint but unmistakable smell of soldering... I was minding my own business on Friday night during a Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks show at The Brushwood Inn in Hillingdon when my trusty Telecaster (well it had been trusty up until that point!) suddenly and very abruptly stopped working. Fortunately I had a spare guitar with me (a Stratocaster in case you were wondering) so I finished the show with that; today has been the first chance I've had to open it up and see if anything obviously wrong, and as I lifted the control panel up it was obvious that a couple of wires had become detached from the pick-up selector switch. I've re-soldered them and it's working again but it's making a rather worrying buzzing - maybe it's not earthed or something? A job for Stuart the guitar repairman methinks... 

Meanwhile in the midst of the past posting's death - fest (!) I omitted to mention that I'd been to a couple of gigs last week. 

On Thursday The Good Old Boys played at The Sunningdale Lounge in Sunningdale. I always find it interesting to see someone else play at a venue that I have played a few times (yes, I know, I should get out more, or make some friends, or something!) and this time was no exception - it being near to the Bank Holiday weekend there were less people about than perhaps there might have been, but the boys still put on a good show. Mind you, they normally do... Nick Simper greeted me with the words 'I thought of you the other day' (now there's something that I never thought that I'd hear a former member of Deep Purple say!) and went on to say that he'd recently guested with The Rapiers at a Johnny Kidd tribute event. He thought that they'd made a good job of things, and as these two clips show, he was correct!

The next night Simon and Hud from The GOBs joined bassist Bill in The Ali Mac Band at The Red Lion in Feltham. I'd not seen them play for what seems like ages, and they sounded good particularly vocally with some excellent harmonies from everybody in the band. I believe that The Red Lion has just started putting live music on, which has got to be a good sign in these days of venues disappearing left right and centre. Let's hope it's a successful venture. 

And for the second weekend running I saw Dave Ruffy depping in a band, this time with The Montecristos at The Islington in (you've guessed it!) Islington last night. With Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X at the helm they roared through a very enjoyable hour or so of rockabilly-charged rocking and rolling, with the young ladies on double bass, trumpet and saxophone drawing many-an admiring look from all concerned. And I hadn't been to The Islington before but will certainly look out for gigs there in the future, as it's an excellent little (with the emphasis on the word 'little'!) venue.

Right - a quiet-ish week this week, with just an Upper Cut private party show on Saturday. Time I got that bloody tax return finished then...

'You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.'

We've been an obituary - free zone here in Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars for a while, so...

Billy Rath, the bassist in Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers left us last Saturday - his place in rock 'n'roll history is assured thanks to him playing on the legendary 'L.A.M.F' album (the story of which is long and tortuous and has given rise to various different versions being released over the last 30-odd years; the amount of time people have been prepared to spend working on the album is perhaps the best testament to it's greatness - for example you can find two 'fan produced' versions of the record here and here...) and of course his participation in the band's live shows. His death leaves Walter Lure as the only surviving member of the classic Heartbreakers line-up - but 'L.A.M.F.' will be with us forever.

Richard Attenborough died yesterday - his performance as Pinkie in 'Brighton Rock' is rightly hailed as one of his best but I'm not sure that I've ever seen else that's as downright creepy as his portrayal of mass murderer John Christie in '10 Rillington Place'. And where would we be without 'The Great Escape'? Just because we've all seen it so many times, it doesn't mean that it's not a great film. I'm sure it'll be on again at Christmas...

And it seems ages since the sad news of Robin Williams committing suicide. If all he'd done was provide us with the quote that I've stolen to head this blog posting then his loss would be a sad one, but it's always a shame when someone loses their fight. Well, I think that it is anyway.

Meanwhile as I type this it's early on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, and I should be getting ready to go to Ye Olde George in Colnbrook for a 5pm show with The Upper Cut - but I'm not. Our singer Terry has an ear infection (ouch!) and so had to pull out of the gig on Saturday morning - at which point the baton was passed to Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks, who were given the gig sometime on Saturday afternoon... until we were told yesterday that the show had been cancelled. Bugger! Oh well - I suppose that you don't miss what you never had? Still Saturday night's show at The Paddington Packet Boat in Cowley went well, with Andy from Back To Zero doing a fine job depping for Dave on drums; he returned for yesterday afternoon's show at Sally B's in Hoddesdon which ended with the club guv'nor taking to the microphone to say that we were the best band that had ever played there. Mind you he then said 'next week we've got a band that I've never heard of' before leaving the stage to general hilarity. I liked him... on the way home most of the band stopped off at The Feathers in Rickmansworth to catch the second set from The Razors, who among other luminaries feature Dave Ruffy on drums. Great was the drinking and cavorting from the assembled multitude, and rightly so as the band sounded great.

Right - since I've got an unexpected afternoon off it's time to finish filling in that tax return that's been annoying me for the last week or so. Oh hang on, I'm still waiting on those bank statements that I ordered last week. Bah! I wonder how easy it is to change bank these days?

Stairway to Devon (sorry!)

...and with post - Rebellion euphoria still rattling around my warped mind I found myself on stage at The 12 Bar Club with The London Sewage Company less than 24 hours after Ruts D.C. had blitzed the building in Blackpool. We were supporting the Australian band The Go Set who sounded pretty good to me, although by the time they came on I don't mind admitting that I was flagging a bit; all things considered our gig went well - and have we really been offered a gig with The Men They Couldn't Hang at The Shepherd's Bush Empire next April? Yes, incredibly, we have! 

And it looks as though I'm not the early person suffering from post - Rebellion euphoria, as Louder Than War have posted this review of our appearances at the festival. Thanks Phil!

In the meantime I've spent far too much time attempting to fill in a tax return, and in doing so have spent far too much time on the phone to my bank attempting to order copies of some bank statements that I've somehow managed to lose. Doesn't anyone answer the phone anymore? Well they don't seem to at my bank. Bah!

Big Al and The Blistering Buicks made their first appearance at The Black Horse in Eastcote on Friday evening. With Dave away Roger from The Upper Cut depped on drums for a most enjoyable 3-set show; the band also played at The 3 Steps in Cowley the next night but I rather wildly decided to give myself the night off to go to see The Damned at The Forum in Kentish Town - and I'm glad that I did as they were in fine form, with Dave Vanian in his best rock 'n' roll undertaker outfit and Captain Sensible as crazy as ever. 'Nasty' was played for Rik Mayall, 'Disco Man' sounded ever bit as good as when I first heard it all those years ago, and the final encore of 'Smash It Up' bought the proverbial house down. Great stuff all round.

It was an early start on Sunday, as Ruts D.C. journeyed down to Devon to play at The Beautiful Days festival. The bus came around for me at 8.15am, and a splendidly - straightforward journey meant that we were all checked in at The Thistle Hotel in Exeter not long after midday. From there it was a somewhat less - than -straightforward journey to the festival site, with sat. nav. chaos and swearing a-plenty. Eventually Nick (our soundman, and for this journey our driver) pulled the bus up next to a rather dilapidated - looking van that was parked just off the road. He then got out of the bus with the words 'if you want to know the way to a festival, ask a hippy' - within minutes of his return we were on the right road at last. Beautiful Days is run by The Levellers, and I must say that it was one of the best and most well - organised gatherings that I've ever been part of. As I got to our dressing room I was greeted by the smiling face of Ian Bond, who I first met when he was soundman for The Chicago Blues Brothers; I'd not seen him for ages and it was good to catch up with him again, he's about to spend several weeks in America with King Crimson so things certainly seem to be going well for him. Our set was scheduled for a quarter to five - such was the efficiency of the stage crew we were on 5 minutes early which is a very rare occurrence. John Robb introduced our set, and with Molara back in the band our set went down well with the very enthusiastic crowd. We managed to see some of Reverend And The Makers and Jimmy Cliff (both of whom were very good) but it had been a long day so we decided to leave before The Levellers played - a shame as I'd really like to have seen them play. Ah well - maybe next time... back at the hotel it's time for beer and pizza all round, and we all agreed that it had been a good day. And we were right - it had.

Right - that's all from Ruts D.C. until next month - this weekend it's back to basics with The Upper Cut and Big Al and the boys...

In the name of love

This piece has taken quite a while to write, which is probably not that obvious from reading it. I'm not entirely sure that it's any good, or if it covers all or even most of my feelings about the extraordinary weekend that I've just experienced, but for better or worse here it is...

So there we are then, The 2014 Rebellion Festival. And what a wonderful event it was - well, I had a good time anyway! I spent a fair amount of it working behind the Cadiz Music merchandising stall with label supremo Richard England and his assistant Blaise, and although it was hard work (yes ok, not as hard as digging a hole or something like that, but you know what I mean!) it was generally really good fun. In addition to various Ruts and Ruts D.C. items (including the re-issue of 'Rhythm Collision Volume 1' and our new live album 'Live On Stage') we had albums and t-shirts from Wilko Johnson, The Cockney Rejects, Electric River, Eight Rounds Rapid and more, and over the course of the four days of the festival we met and spoke to literally hundreds of people; yes there was the odd nutter but overall it was something that was a real pleasure to be part of. 

It was good to catch up with various people too, many of whom I hadn't seen since last year's gathering while some like John King I'd arranged to meet at the festival. Somewhat inevitably this involved late nights and lots of drinking - well, why not eh? It's only once a year after all... 

However the real reason that I was there was of course to play with Ruts D.C.; following our performance at The 12 Bar Club back in February we were invited to play an acoustic show on Saturday evening as well as headlining The Pavilion Stage (formally known as The Bizarre Bazaar) the following night. In addition to these two gigs Segs and Dave were interviewed by Garry Bushell on The Literary Stage on Sunday afternoon, which was an amusing and lively session ostensibly to discuss the upcoming book on the band ('Love In Vain - The Story Of The Ruts and Ruts D.C.' which should be out in October) but which ended up covering all sorts of unrelated topics featuring much banter between all concerned. All good entertaining stuff, as was Bushell's interview with Pete Haynes earlier in the day, where Pete spoke of his new book 'Cool Water' and even gave your humble narrator a name check for encouraging him to pursue his gift for writing all those years ago. Well - I did!
The acoustic show took place at 9.20 pm on Saturday evening in the bar - throughout the preceding days I'd been aware that while many visiting the stall were looking forward to Sunday's electric set it was the acoustic show that had really caught people's imagination. 'What are you going to play?' was a common question, as indeed was 'how are you going to play it?' In an attempt to answer these and many other queries Dave, Segs and myself gathered in Segs's hotel room at half past three in the afternoon - well, there's nothing like leaving it until the last minute is there? As we were setting up before the show it became that we were going to be playing to a full house, to such an extent that by the time we kicked off the show with 'Something That I Said' there were so many people in the room that a visit from the local fire department would have surely resulted in the show being closed down. Given the unusual nature of the gig we chose some less likely songs from the band's back catalogue (including 'Dangerous Minds' and 'Despondency' from 'Animal Now') as well as giving the first-ever public performance of a new song 'Second Hand Child' - as the set progressed I for one was aware of the growing intensity of the show, and by the time we got to 'Babylon's Burning' things were at fever pitch with our last song 'In A Rut' instigating the sort of standing ovation that people like me can usually only dream about. Amazing. But things didn't end there, as next up was the mighty T.V. Smith. He began his set as a solo act but then invited me to join him and bassman Jonathan from his band The Bored Teenagers for a couple of songs before getting the rest of the band up to finish the show with three Adverts songs. You can see how it all ended by clicking here - yes, that is Attila The Stockbroker joining me at the microphone near the end, and yes, the drummer really is playing a cardboard box!

But if that was a good gig then the electric set the next evening took things to another dimension entirely. I wrote last time about how we were following Glen Matlock whose band was to feature Earl Slick on guitar - I'd hoped to meet him and so was well pleased when I bumped into him (literally - he came through a door as I was about to walk through it in the other direction!) and he turned out to be a very nice chap, as did drummer Slim Jim Phantom who was also playing with Glen. I missed most of their set as we were getting changed and working out a set list - as I walked towards the stage to get ready for our show I saw Mr. Slick again (I'm starting to sound like a stalker now aren't I?!?) who's comment 'all black - that's the way to go man!' has all but guaranteed that I'll never wear any other colour clothing on stage again. Well I will, but you know what I mean!
We were introduced on stage by Irvine Welsh, who is a friend of Segs's and who had also appeared on The Literary Stage earlier in the day; as he wrote 'Trainspotting' there was of course only one possible opening song... we usually open with a reggae - style song so starting with 'H-Eyes' caught everyone by surprise. Once again some less-than-obvious songs featured in the set, not least 'Demolition Dancing' which has always been a big favourite of mine - judging by the audience reaction quite a few other people like it too... without wishing to sound too big-headed there are some shows that you just know are going to be special, that are just that little bit better than usual, and as we neared the end it was clear that this was going to be one to remember. Despite being told that there was a curfew and that we couldn't come back for an encore the audience simply refused to leave, even when the crew began dismantling the drum kit. We eventually returned for a blazing romp through 'Society' which ended what was a truly unforgettable performance and - dare I say it - one of the best things that I've ever been part of.

Gatherings such as this seem to contain so many high points, and yet I've found that there's often a defining moment which somehow focuses the overall feeling into a few words or a single statement - this time the one that sticks with me occurred in the backstage bar in the early hours of Sunday morning after our acoustic show. Segs and I were talking to Doug, who knew Malcolm Owen when he (Doug) was in his early teens. I said something about how it must have been an extraordinary experience - Doug just smiled and said 'he taught me dignity, and he taught me pride'. 

His words hung in the air. I can still hear him saying them now. I hope that I hear them forever.