Tag Archives: music

11-09-2017 – Loved Up Special

Yo homeys, as famous farmyard rapper Notorious P.I.G. would say…

Another weekend of giggery goodness, we kicked off with one of our favourites, the lovely Goatfest, just outside Calne. Despite earlier downpours, the rain held off for the night, so we got to thoroughly enjoy the luxury of a big stage and lights, and excellent PA superbly engineered by our pal Brian of Noizboys in Swindon.

It was hard to see too much of the crowd past the lights, but we could tell they were there by the singalong (they almost drowned Emma out during the intro to “Don’t Stop Me Now”), but also by the somewhat ribald heckling… READ MORE

04-09-2017 – Goat Thing Beard

Howdy pardners

Well, that was a rootin’-tootin’ mighty fine weekend of rawk’n’roll, and…

…oh, bollocks to it, I’m bored with the cowboy voice already.

Suffice to say another spiffing pair of gigs at the weekend, with much jolly singing and dancing from the audiences, and much titting about, moments of sheer musical brilliance interspersed with episodes of titanic incompetence from the band, and a certain amount of dressing up.

Emma and I are still bemused as to why wearing a comedy false beard should make your sunglasses steam up. Although, to be fair, not as bemused as the innocent girl who walked into the pub to be greeted by the following sight (I promise, there IS a logical reason for it!) and let out an involuntary shriek of horror…. READ MORE

30-08-2017 – Rampant Pickle

Yo homeys!

Well, we hope you enjoyed the long weekend as much as we did – but we bet you didn’t!

We kicked off with a pleasant evening in the Assembly Inn in Bath; the Gods Of Parking smiled on us and we were able park right outside the door, in the last two parking spaces left in Bath. Setting up in the small space was easier than last time we were here, partly as I cunningly left a couple of speaker cabinets at home, but mostly because we knew already which bits of the floor were in fact treacherously unstable and hence not safe for putting anything heavy on. We played, they shouted for more, but we’d hit the neighbour noise curfew so we legged it off home for some beer. The night was also memorable for being the first time Emma realised what Ben and I are actually singing to the chorus of “I Love Rock and Roll”. Lucky she keeps an inhaler handy, really. READ MORE

21-08-2017 – Trouserless Combat Vomiting

Ahoy there shipmates!

So nice to be out playing again, I think we can put last weekend firmly into the “damned good fun” box for safe keeping.

Following a pleasing night at the Rolly in Swindon – where sadly we missed our regular local maniac Mad Freddy, but instead were treated to Mad Dancing Andy Warhol, and a definitely enthusiastic crowd – it was on the following night to the Swan in Thornbury for a jolly family knees-up.

Since Dem and Lil were away, it seemed best to bring my two youngest lads along and play a few songs with them, with a combination of Ben & Emma on vocals, plus young Joe making his public vocal debut on one of his favourite Green Day numbers. Whilst playing bass. So, that’s one of my offspring simultaneously doing two things that I can’t do. Evolution in action. READ MORE

14-08-2017 – The Holy Guitarist

Hola, mes amigos!

Right, so after a weekend over which I’m pretty sure I didn’t even touch a guitar – being too busy as I was constructing a temple in the back garden, the reasons for which I am sure Dem will be able to explain to me in due course – we have little to report this week (I’m assuming here that a detailed itinerary of my dealings with timber merchants and a catalogue of minor injuries sustained during the building process will be of only minor interest).

However, we do have a nice, normal two-gig weekend coming up to look forward to… READ MORE

07-08-2017 – The Holland Splutter

Hello stranger!

Well, with no gigs coming up this weekend, I really have no reason to write this, other than to remind you all (and to some extent myself) that we’re not actually dead yet.

So I’ll probably just keep this as a brief recap of the last few gigs that we played, but I never got around to telling you all about, due to me vacationing in sunny Holland with my dear (in the sense of expensive) family. As a special treat, we also took with us a selection of unpleasant viral infections, so – apart from a rather lovely day visiting windmills followed by the very fine Hieronymus Bosch museum – my main memories of the week consist of days of driving across featureless landscapes and nights of staying awake coughing. READ MORE

17-07-2017 – Questionable Perfection

Evenin’ all!

Well, that constitutes a “good week”, I think – at least in that nobody broke any bones this time.

Actually, Friday night at the Trout in Keysnham was great fun, despite a couple of rather spectacular cockups from yours truly – including the classic “starting the next song without looking at your fretboard, then after half a verse slowly realising that you started in the wrong key” mistake. Nonetheless, the rather lively crowd didn’t care, and to be honest we were having so much fun we didn’t either. READ MORE

10-07-2017 – Purple Toes

Hola!

And a mighty fine weekend of gigging more than made for the tribulations of the week – the obvious highlight of which was your beloved correspondent managing to break several of his beloved bones. For those morbidly interested in such matters, see the email thread at the end of this missive for further details.

Suffice to say that by Friday I was, although slightly limping, back in a fit state for rawk’n’roll combat; thus we were able to fulfil our appointment with destiny the Assembly Inn in Bath, which turned out to be a rather nice pub, albeit very little in the way of spare room for bands to set up in. Nonetheless, we managed to shoehorn ourselves in, and after a little gentle bullying (and a few beers), the crowd agreed to enjoy themselves, so that all turned out nicely in the end. READ MORE

03-07-2017 – Kinda Sporty

Hello, my little pork sausages!

Just a short missive this week; after two weekends in a row without gigs, there really isn’t very much to report on the rawk’n’roll front.

I still haven’t learned to play, but I guess after all this time you’d probably already assumed that was the case.

So, we’ll cut, as they say, to the chase, and the upcoming delights of this weekend’s outings…

Friday 7th – Assembly Inn, Bath
A new one for us, and out of curiosity I just Googled it. Variously described as “Bath’s premier sports bar” (oh dear) and “a non-nonsense boozer” (in which case I have to wonder why, if they have such a deep-seated aversion to nonsense, they booked us); nonetheless, I was cheered by the reports that it’s “a great l’il pub” and “the beer was great and there’s a wide selection”. I do so prefer wide selections, even if it’s a bit of a struggle squeezing them in through the door. Anyways; can’t wait to get out spanking the plank again, no matter where we are or who we’re doing it to. READ MORE

19-06-2017 – The Twat In A Hat And Other Stories

Greetings, my little summer breezes.

Well, that was a mighty busy weekend – 3 gigs, we haven’t done one of those for ages.

We were most looking forward to Friday’s trip up to a bike rally up near Tewkesbury, a roomy hall, with a nice big stage, and – if Thursday’s rehearsal was anything to go by, we are indeed a talented and capable group of musos. And, as you can see, somewhat the model of sartorial elegance…

Twat in a hat

Well, the hall was indeed roomy – perhaps a little too much so at the beginning, given the somewhat limited size of the audience when it came to be time to start playing. (If you’re reading this – Hi, Paul!). READ MORE