Tag Archives: swindon

17-09-2022 – Sick again, Arctic Monkeys and Oooh Arrrrrhhh!

Mornin all!

Just a quick missive to update you all on the latest shenanigans in the weird and wonderful world of Rawk & RollTM.

So, Saturday night at the excellent Old Mill in Portishead, Ben and I arrive a touch early and – dare I say – with almost military precision, set up the PA, backline, lights, smoke machine, and rubber chicken. We’ve almost completed this process when we espy Stuart pull up outside, so we skip merrily out to help haul his drumming paraphernalia in.

Oh dearie me, he does not look at all well. I realize that pale grey is a fashionable colour for domestic residences these days, but it does not look good on a percussionist. Still, he is adamant that “the show must go on”, even if he does have to stop three times for a rest while setting up his drumkit… READ MORE

04-09-2022 – Police And Party In The Ponds

Hey gang

Well after a week away from work (but not from working, oh dearie me, no, not with 25 years’ worth of accumulated crap to empty out of a house), it was a light relief to load up the ol’ van with the usual catalogue of amplifiers, guitars, lights, and associated gigging paraphernalia for our outing to the Railway Tavern in Fishponds.

However, after some thought, I decided to take the catalogues back out again, and put the actual equipment in instead.

Ben decided to give his spare bass a rare outing, but after two songs remembered why it was relegated to spare, and switched back to his regular weapon of choice. (And, just in case anyone is mean-spirited enough to forward this on to my dear other half, I would like to clarify that I, personally, do not possess any “spare” guitars. Oh, dearie me, no. They each have specific tonal qualities and functionalities, and thus all are absolutely and fundamentally necessary. I trust that clears that point up once and for all). READ MORE

28-08-2022 – And Just A Bit Late!

Yoho, me hearties!

Arrrr, and it be a fine sunny day here on the good ship Angel Up Front, the gulls be a-wheelin’ over the mizzen mast, there’s a stiff breeze a-blowin’ from the Indies to the Spanish Main, I spies a merchantman clipper on the horizon, laden with booty ripe for a-plunderin’, and….

What’s that? “Come in number seven, your time is up?”

Surely can’t have been half an hour yet, can it?

Actually, I have in fact been on the high seas this week – beloved talented daughter Lily, fresh from her support gig at the Fleece last weekend, chose to splash (see what I did there?) her ill-gotten gains on a paddleboard, and so we spent a merry couple of hours trying it out at the local water park one evening. READ MORE

22-08-2022 – Tosh for Time Travellers

Greetings, Earthlings!

And, after a Welcome BreakTM for everyone, it’s back to the rock’n’roll grindstone, with rather a doozy of a local gig coming up.

We’re expecting to see quite a few old pals coming along to this one, and quite possibly some new ones as well. Best of all, it’s within walking distance for our glamorous chanteuse Abs, which means that she can – and we are proud of her for this choice of terminology – “get proper shitfaced”.

Friday 26th August – Blue Lagoon, Gloucester Road READ MORE

04-08-2022 – Hair Bear Bunch Twit

Top o’the mornin’ to ye!

Right, this missive will be a brief one, not least because I forgot to write it 2 days ago and only just remembered…

It’s not my fault, my mind has been occupied recently with Higher Things.

Well, in fact, it’s been occupied with trying to remember the names of the Hair Bear Bunch.

(If anyone else is old enough to remember, a kid’s TV series from the seventies, as I recall were cartoon bears who lived in a zoo which they perpetually escaped from and travelled around on an invisible motorcycle). Obviously, I could Google the answer, but then I’d end up following a link and watching an episode or two, and I don’t want to do that as it will probably turn out to be rubbish; I think on balance I prefer to keep the happy nostalgic view of it that I recall. Even if I can’t remember their bloody names. It’s either that or go back to putting LSD in my cornflakes, which, in retrospect, I suspect must have been what our parents were doing at the time. READ MORE

25-07-2022 – Hot, Sweaty And Microphones

Hello Earthlings!

Just a short report of the weekend’s gigging – we actually have next weekend off, so that’ll be a welcome relief for y’all…

Friday night, and we’re back at one of our favourite old haunts, the Railway Tavern in Fishponds. It’s been ages since we played here, and that’s why we found ourselves not quite up to speed with the current timing regime.

In the Before times, there was a fairly robust half-eleven finish time, and in fact, even if we started bang on nine o’clock (which we rarely did, as there are so many nice people to talk nonsense to), we’d sometimes struggle to fit in two full sets. So, come the witching hour of nine, we promptly crack on with things. READ MORE

23-07-2022 – Almost On Time

Aloha amigos!

And, as Bristol and its environs bask in the sunshine, the palm trees in the garden waving gently in the breeze, the only sound is the gentle chittering of cicadas nestled in their fronds, whilst our flock of flamingoes seek respite from the noonday sun in the shade of the bougainvillea…

Okay, I’ll own up, I had to google how to spell that. Originally I thought a cicada was a Mexican beer, and a bougainvillea was a posh house in France.

Still, if a humble engineer can’t aspire to a bit of literary culture, what’s the world coming to?  READ MORE

23-07-2022 – Rather Retrospective Now

Aloha!

Seeing as it’s too damned hot to do much of anything today, here’s the briefest of brief rundowns of last week’s gigging activity, and a quick glance at the upcoming festivities this Friday…

Thursday night, and up to the Royal Oak in Sodding Chipbury for a sweaty evening’s entertainment. Things were going fine until about half an hour in when Alan’s guitar suddenly loses the warm, articulate tone for which it is (rightly) renowned and admired, and instead starts producing a very quiet distorted sound, more akin to a mouse having an aneurysm. READ MORE

03-07-2022 – Really Bad Joke

Aloha!

Just a brief one this week – firstly, a reminder of our two upcoming gigs this week, as previously advertised…

Thursday 7th July – Royal Oak, Chipping Sodbury

Saturday 9th July – Liberal Club, Colerne

And secondly, based on a poll of the votes received last week, it would appear that you are collectively in favour of terrible, terrible, jokes.

So – here you go – and remember, you literally asked for this…

A horse sees a rock band perform and thinks “Hey, I could do that.” The horse calls up his local music store and is like “I wanna learn guitar, just one problem, I’m a horse.” The employee says “don’t worry we can do that.” The horse goes, learns guitar for a few months, gets really good, and is pretty happy with himself. “OK, now I can start a band!” READ MORE

26-06-2022 – The Heavy Carry

Well, why not…?

Yoho Ahoy!

Well, although we have no gigs coming up this week, I figured it was best to report on the last one before I forget…

So a Thursday night, and due to what can only be described as poor planning, we have a gig in the centre of Cardiff on the same day I have promised to play removals man and transport daughter Lily and her other half Alastair back home from Birmingham, along with all their possessions.

So, after getting up painfully early in the morning, and hooshing up to Brum at full speed, the three of us spend a happy few hours rounding up all their stuff, bullying it into various boxes and containers, and manhandling it down the three narrow flights of stairs. It’s hot sticky work, and Alastair and I decide to tactically dispense with shirts for the duration. Having amassed a mountain of stuff on the street, we attempt, Tetris-stylee, to shoehorn it all into the back of the van. After about three attempts, we have managed to triumphantly get the doors shut, although if they owned just one more item – e.g. a cigarette paper – I’m sure we wouldn’t have done. READ MORE