Tag Archives: cat and wheel

06-01-2020 – 1920 in 2020

Happy New Year to you all!

And, if you’re reading this, it means we all survived, which can only be a good thing.

Well, to round off 2019, we played what turned out to be a twenties-themed New Year Eve gig at the Three Brooks in Bradley Stoke – where I learned, whilst we were setting up, that the twenties music they were playing through the pub tannoy is exactly like ska, in that it sounds rather jolly and fun at first; but after a while you realise there are only actually three tunes, the incessant repetition of which slowly begins to alter your brain chemistry, leaving you in a fit of barely controllable suppressed rage. Or maybe it’s just me… READ MORE

31-12-2019 – Thitherto

Ho ho, and, indeed ho.

We hope that Santa brought you everything you deserve – all I can say is that I must have been a very naughty boy indeed this year.

Anyways, just to catch up on a recent couple of hitherto (and what a magnificent word that is, I do so enjoy the archaic use of a spatial metaphor to describe a temporal condition – but whatever happened to its logical companion term, “thitherto”? – answers on a postcard, please) unreported gigs: – 

A full couple of weeks ago saw us in sunny Caldicot, for a most acceptable evening at the Cellar Bar, about which I can remember very little. READ MORE

05-08-2019 – FAN

Hola amigos!

Well, after a couple of weeks away, it’s good to be back. Although not so good to be back at work. Obviously.

So, the big question was… can we remember how to play?

And the answer was… kinda…

Poor Ben had managed to somehow knacker his risk while we weren’t there to supervise him, and therefore spent much of Saturday night’s Cat & Wheel gig making pained expressions, poor bugger. And the rest of the time, like the rest of us, sweating like a rhino with Lhassa fever in a crowded sauna. It was damned hot in there – there was a large fan on the bar, but with a stern sign on it declaring that it was SPECIFICALLY for use of the bar staff ONLY, because it can get VERY HOT behind the bar, and it is NOT permitted to turn the fan round to point in any other direction. READ MORE

22-07-2019 – The Stark Horrors Of Reality

Ahoy there shipmates!

I’ll keep this one short and simple – a bit like Dopey the Dwarf, I suppose. But first, I’ll give you all just a moment to try and remember the names of the other six dwarves, okay? Ready? Off you go…






…Back now? Got them all? There, well done you!

And if anybody didn’t remember the last one – it was Doc. It’s always bloody Doc….

Anyway – I digress. Saturday’s trip to the Queen Vic was a bit of an odd night – for one thing, I got told to turn my guitar up several times. That doesn’t happen as often as you might expect. READ MORE

18-02-2019 – Er … JagerBomb … maybe!?

Ah, there you are.

And what time of night do you call this, young lady? Your mother and I have been worried sick. And it’s a school night, and I’ll bet you haven’t done any of your homework either. You’re grounded!

Anyways…

Friday night at the Cat & Wheel, and a lively time in particular from a table full of keen Jagerbomb enthusiasts. It took them a full five songs before any of them started dancing on the furniture, and nobody actually fell over the monitors, so all in all they were rather well-behaved, I thought. Usually these situations can get rather messy. READ MORE

11-02-2019 – Regular Stuff

Howdy pardners!

We hope y’all had a rootin’ tootin’ weekend ridin’ out on the priarie… Oh, stuff it, I’m bored with this already. If you want more cowboy-themed entertainment, go watch a Western!

We tend to make our own entertainment.

Fortunately, we’re pretty easily pleased.

And so it was that at the Trident in Downend on Friday, although it’s fair to say that the pub could probably have crammed in a few more punters without too much problem, there were enough there to keep us happy. We were particularly impressed with top punter Pete, who joined in with Emma’s drinking game with such enthusiasm that he got through 2 pints in the course of one (quite short) song. Well done, that man! READ MORE

23-07-2018 – Purple …..

Good evening; and here is the news….

Friday night, and a trip to the Trout in Keynsham to unveil not one, not two, not three, but four (yes, four, count ‘em!) songs we’d not gigged before. Actually, I failed to count ‘em and mistakenly left one off the setlist; fortunately Em remembered about it and scribbled it back in just before we started playing.

Poor Em. Somehow she managed to bugger up one of her knees last week, but armed with lots of medical strapping and some weapons-grade painkillers, she heroically made it to the gig, and actually managed to get most the way through proceedings still upright. Alas, near the end, she could bear the pain no more and had to have a chair fetched and her leg propped up to finish off the second set.

I wish I’d taken a photo – probably the least rawk’n’roll “Foot on Monitor” image ever…

Still, it was a rather fine night, so we were eagerly looking forward to the Saturday session at the Cat & Wheel. And, it didn’t disappoint.

The first set was enlivened by a rather boisterous Aussie Rules football team, who were out celebrating winning the shiny trophy they’d just won; they were also drinking out of a pair of children’s pink sparky wellies, and at one point one of the chaps tried to persuade her to swap her microphone for the large purple dildo he was holding.

“Tempting though the offer is”, she tells the crowd, “Seeing the way he handles that thing, I think I’d best stick to what I’m used to – he’s clearly much more experienced with that kind of thing…”

The gentleman seems well pleased with this.

By the second set, poor Em’s knee is misbehaving again, and she has to resort to sitting on the bar stool we’ve cunningly set aside for just such an occasion.

Sitting down, she’s substantially taller.

So, we play the second set to an appreciative crowd, alas now bereft of dildos, until we run past the end of the music licence. Then we play another one, and call it a night.

Right then, we have no gigs planned this weekend – Ben will be busy moving house, and Em will resting her poorly leg.

After which, we should be match fit and ready to go for the next batch of gigs; as long as Ben can remember where he now lives…

Square on
A

23-07-2018 – The Minimalist Edition

Greetings, my children of the night…

Well, with no gigs to report on, this will be a nice short one – we’re going back to basics, I’m simply going to tell you where we’re playing this weekend, so’s you’ll know which venues to avoid…

Friday 27th – The Trout, Keynsham
A fine, energetic, boisterous – and, I have to say, a somewhat messy crowd in here means it will be a significantly entertaining evening. We’ve been working on a few new tunes lately, so you might well get to hear us play some of them for the first time.

Saturday 28th – Cat & Wheel, Gloucester Road Bristol
A fine, energetic, boisterous – and, I have to say, a somewhat messy crowd in here means it will be a significantly entertaining evening. We’ve been working on a few new tunes lately, so you might well get to hear us play some of them correctly for the first time.

And that, I think just about wraps it up. If the weather continues fair you might still find wearing our summer outfits – in my case, the redneck hobo look…

Hobo Alan

…and in Emma’s case, rocking a pair of cat’s ears…

Cat Emma

The less said about Ben and Stuart’s outfits, the better, I think…

Erk

Square on
A

23-01-2017 – The Dog, Drum and Monkey of it

Ahoy there shipmates!

Another jolly weekend in rock; Friday at the Cat & Wheel was notable for the sheer quantity of spilt beer and broken glass all over the floor afterwards; a very lively night, but fortunately nobody aimed their boobies at Stuart this time. After we passed out the “fellatable guitars” into the crowd, only one came back safely afterwards, but was so covered in beer and grime that I binned it; after all, nobody’s going to want to wrap their lips around that, I figured.

Saturday night, and the rather more refined surroundings of Queen Amy’s Railway Tavern in Fishponds.

As we are setting up, a nice lady comes up and asks Stuart to warn her before he starts hitting the drums, as the small dog she has with her is very nervous and panics at sudden loud noises. Stuart asks if the dog would be okay with a little gentle tuning-up of the drums, and she says this will be fine.

Accordingly, he sets up and gives his snare a gentle tap or two. Immediately she appears at his kit, very irate, clutching a small trembling canine, and gives poor Stuart a Proper Telling Off, before stomping back to her table.

“Don’t worry”, I tell our bemused sticksman, “I’ll sort this out”.

I go to apologise to the nice lady, and after listening to her for a while rhetorically asking why drummers are always incapable of not banging things, not even for a few moments, and, especially since they’re about to be hitting drums for the next two hours anyway, why they can’t refrain for just a little while so that innocent members of the public can remove their fractious pets from the area, I realise that this scenario has been played out several times before, and that probably she doesn’t realise that tuning a drum kit cannot be done without actually touching it.

To try and mollify her, I explain that it is a common characteristic of drummers to be fairly straightforward, innocent souls, who are easily confused.

“You know those little toys you used to get, the little clockwork monkeys that bang a drum?” I say. “Well, there’s a reason they’re monkeys…”.

This line of reasoning seems to appeal to her, and by the end of our little chat she is much happier.

I go back to setting up, and Stuart looks up as I return.

“All sorted now?” he asks.

“All sorted”, I say. “I told her you were an idiot.”

As the night progresses, quite a few heavy imbibers are in evidence, including a hen night party, sipping their drinks through hilariously willy-shaped straws.

“Is that what I think it is?” Rosa nervously asked one of the girls.

“Oh, it certainly is – would you like one?” came the reply.

“Yes, please”, replies Rosa, adding after sipping her drink, “Ooh, it tastes of strawberries, doesn’t it?”.

“They always do”, I inform her.

Ben eyes me suspiciously. “And how do you know?”

I do not deign to answer, choosing instead to maintain a dignified and enigmatic silence.

Highlight of the evening for me occurs halfway through an impassioned guitar solo, when I open my eyes and am delightfully startled to find Queen Amy’s lovely face has appeared half an inch from mine, puckered up for a friendly greeting kiss. Aww, bless! We’d been wondering where she’d gotten to.

Just to balance things out, during my next guitar solo a few minutes later, I am hit in the side of the head by half of a flying drumstick [Editor’s note: Karma eh!].

The evening continues with much more jolliness and dancing around, and finally, several songs after time has been called, we run out of things to play, and call it a night.

“It’s a night”, we said.

So, a lovely night, and now we have just one more gig to play with Rosa before she runs away with the Jazz Pixies…

Friday 27th – New Crown Inn, Bath
Lovely friendly little pub, usually gets pretty full, but that’s largely on account of it not being very big. On the other hand, I’ve just remembered that last time we played here was Halloween, so it’s entirely possible that our fancy dress antics last time will have scared off all the customers. And perhaps even that the landlord has run away to hide, and maybe set fire to the pub on his way out, just to be on the safe side. We shall have to see…

Square on
A

16-01-2017 – Angel UpDate – Thanks for the Mammory

Yo homeys

Well, the Blue Lagoon certainly didn’t disappoint on the drunken audience front; helped immeasurably by a coterie of ladies there for a 49th birthday bash; the birthday girl herself making quite a pastime of manipulating her chest at band members; she started with me, but since I simply beamed back at her, have her a thumbs-up and said “Thank you very much”, she shifted her mammary manoeuvring in Stuart’s direction – since he was careless enough to look slightly shocked, he thus became the focus of her bosomy wibbling for the rest of the evening.

I was actually feeling quite poorly after a long day, so I was quite glad that the stage-invadery that started the moment the inflatable guitars came out was on the other side of the drumkit from me, so I could carry on playing unmolested. Eventually the bouncers had to intervene to shoo various drunks off the stage so we could continue playing; but not before the birthday girl and her chums treated everybody to what Ben and I subsequently agreed was the most accomplished and enthusiastic oral-sex-simulation-with-an-inflatable-guitar that we’ve ever seen at a gig.

And we have, I’m sorry to say, seen it more than a few times…

Right then, coming up next weekend, a couple of rather fine gigs at some of our favourite Bristol venues…

Friday 20th – Cat & Wheel, Gloucester Rd, Bristol
A bit cosy from our point of view (that’s a point, I wonder how I’m going to fit my lovely new stack in there?), but always lively and a good giggle.

Saturday 21st – Railway Tavern, Fishponds
Ahh, the court of her beloved majesty Queen Amy of Fishponds, we kinda think of this place as our spiritual home. A pub rock Nirvana. Well, sort of. Nearvana, I suppose…

We should remind y’all that these will probably be our last Bristol gigs with Rosa before she leaves us, so if you want to catch her before she goes, this might be a good opportunity.

We’re still working on finding someone who can fill her mighty sparkly shoes, but don’t worry, we have an excellent short-term solution and won’t be dropping any gigs in a hurry.

We’ll keep you posted on developments as they – well, as they develop. In the meantime, we hope to see you at a gig soon, but please try to stay away from the inflatable erotica…

Square on
A