May the Fourth Be With You.

No, no, I’m not a day late, I’m just really early for next year, okay?

Right, well we hope you enjoyed your sunny Blank Holiday weekend; mine was quite chilled, actually, thanks for asking – with Dem away down at Land’s End with the two most maniacal offspring, I managed to get a cheeky half hour in the guitar shop playing away on the lovely items hanging on their wall…

Unfortunately the upshot of all this is that I now need another guitar… If anybody has any suggestions as to how I can justify this to the Internal Finance Committee, I’d be glad of some assistance.

To help you out with your suggestions, my current stock* in the house includes: –

• A very nice acoustic for gigs and recording
• A nasty beaten up acoustic for festivals
• A very nasty beaten up acoustic 12-string
• A Strat
• Another Strat
• My Precious, for those Les-Paul type moments
• My beautiful Pandora The Explorer, for posing with
• A cheap whammy-bar equipped metal machine for pretending to be Eddie Van Halen

*not including those belonging to various offspring (which includes 3 more acoustics, 2 electrics, 2 basses and a ukulele!)

So, obviously, I do really need another one – but Dem can be so unreasonable sometimes…

Anyways, gig report time: –

Friday night at the Trout in Keynsham started off relatively quietly, but was soon enlivened by the appearance of my ex-boss (a fine fellow) with his missus and her sister – the latter of whom greeted me with a cheery, “’Allo. I’m Alison, and I’m wankered. Are you single?” Shortly afterwards, the usual drunken Trout rabble rolled unsteadily in to catch the second set, and after that it all got rather jolly.

So, by the end of the second set, the floor was awash with spilt drinks and dribble – and not all of them ours, I hasten to add. Lou’s cousin Morgan joined us playing bass on Teen Spirit, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so happy. I think Lou is slowly turning her into a full-on rock monster. Good work, that girl!

Saturday night was a bit different; we’d been asked to play at a local festival in Bath that turned out to be quite subdued. Still, they gave us some beer, which was nice, and we did also get to catch the rather marvellous Cindy Stratton doing her very lovely folky loopsy set. Come the allotted hour, we hurriedly bundled what kit we could fit onto the small stage (so, no keyboards or second guitar tonight, then) and began to play to the remaining peeps, once we started playing, they all got up and danced merrily and manically around until the curfew came around, and we had to call it a day.

“It’s a day” we said.

Just as well, really, as some of them were starting to remove their clothing…

More fun and frolics coming up this weekend…

Friday 8^th May – Charlies Bar, Westbury
Apparently they’ve got a nice new stage and lighting set up in here, so we can look even more glamorous and professional than usual. And that’s saying something*.

Okay, thassit for this week

Square On
A

*Not much, though.