Tag Archives: giant goram

07-10-2019 – Well Carry On Then

Hola amigos!

Big apologies to anybody who tried to come out to see us at the Giant Goram on Friday – we weren’t there!

To be fair, our Emma was a poorly little chicken indeed, having barely survived Thursday’s trip to the Royal Oak – she did message earlier in the day to say she was feeling terrible, but we were still not quite prepared for the sorry sight that shambled in just before gig time. Oh dearie me, she was not a happy little singer.

Still, bless her, she managed to just about make it through the night – and it did give us an excuse to trot out a couple of extra numbers with Ben on lead vocals, to give her a few minutes recovery time. READ MORE

30-09-2019 – Stop, Thief

Boy howdy!

And welcome to this week’s thrill-packed episode of rambling nonsense.

Friday night’s expedition to the Old Mail House was successful, from my point of view at least, in that I managed to pull off a triumph of rock’n’roll blokiness, by diverting course on the way to the gig to buy an angle grinder.

Impressed, eh?

That’s nearly as blokily impressive as a man with two sheds, wouldn’t you say?

(I don’t actually have two sheds. I’m not weird, or anything). READ MORE

28-05-2019 – Hay Fever!

Aloha!

And a warm welcome to this week’s little episode of rawk’n’roll strangeness.

I’ll keep this one fairly short, as it’s too nice a day to be sat inside banging away on a keyboard for the dubious benefit of you lot…

Friday night at the lovely Railway Tav in Fishponds, and a huge fun gig, enlivened by the presence of Stuart’s lovely sister, who had come all the way over from Canada, for the sole purpose of seeing us*. It was also enlivened by lots of punters jigging merrily around all night, and I personally was particularly pleased by the nice ladies who were queuing up afterwards to buy us all a beer. I like it when that happens. READ MORE

20-05-2019 – Ultra Cute Fluffy Kitten, Just For the Hell of It!

Hey folks

A weekend of contrasts in rawk – Friday night at the Giant Goram in Lawrence Weston – always a rather informal affair – was enlivened by the presence of our new best mate Tia, who spent the first set dancing around enthusiastically to everything, and then at half-time appeared with a large tray of shots for the band.

We rather liked her.

Even more so when she told us the tale of the last time she went out to see a band.

“I don’t get out much…”, she tells us, “…So anyway, the last time I went out to see a band, I was having such a great time, I was dancing around so much that I was sick on the floor”. READ MORE

14-05-2019 – Goth Colouring Book

Ahoy there shipmates!

A whole weekend off, which turned out to be no bad thing in some ways, as last week was – well, a bit of a bugger, really, for some of us.

On the other hand, most weeks turn out to be a bit of a bugger, one way or another, and there really is nothing more therapeutic that jumping around making a bloody loud noise. I heartily recommend it, I’m sure it’s much more effective at relieving stress than the “meditative colouring books” I recently noticed for sale. I can’t help feeling that if your troubles can be resolved by sitting down for an hour with a pack of felt tips, you probably don’t have enough troubles. READ MORE

11-10-2018 – You Can Coil My Cables Anytime

Hola amigos!

Welcome back to the never-ending tour diaries of Angel Up Front – to my mind, the finest rawk’n’roll band in this blog. (Although I have to admit, the competition is somewhat limited on that front…)

Nonetheless, I must admit that, talented and lovely as we are, even we are not above the occasional mishap; for example, on Friday at the Giant Goram, one of our number (who shall remain nameless) forgot the words to Alice Cooper*’s classic anthem School’s Out – such that we started the song, we played round the first verse twice waiting for inspiration to strike, then stopped again.

We ask the punters if they’d like us to try again – they would, so after a quick reminder of the words, we successfully manage to get through it on the second attempt.

The rest of the night passes without mishap, and whilst we’re packing up, Emma (for it was indeed she who forgot the words) redeems herself magnificently.

Amongst the usual packing-away chaos of drum cases, lighting stands, etc, scattered everywhere, Em suddenly stops what she’s doing when she notices me just gazing at her from somewhere across the stage.

“What is it?” she asks.

“I was just watching you,” I explain. “Thing is…There’s something almost supernaturally sexy about a woman who can coil up mike cables properly”.

She is well pleased with this.

Funnily enough, the following night at the Crown in Staple Hill, between sets, a couple of the audience are telling Ben how very impressed they are with the evening’s entertainment, and in particular how talented Emma is. “

Yes, she certainly is”, he agrees, “But to tell the truth, when we did the auditions, the main reason she got the job was that she can coil up cables…”.

However, our favourite audience response comes after we finish the last set, and all slump down at a nearby table to catch our breath for a moment.

“Excuse me”, a nice lady enquires, “Can I just ask… Are you all related?”

We’re reduced to stunned silence for a moment.

We look round at each other, trying in vain to see some family resemblance.

“Er… not as far as we know…” we hazard, cautiously.

Emma eventually works out the logic behind the question.

“It’s because we’re all idiots, isn’t it…?”

Coming up next week – another dose of amnesiac idiocy…
Saturday 13th – Albion House Social Club, Cheltenham
Not one of your lower class social clubs, this is actually a proper nice place, with decent beer, massively helpful staff, and a friendly and enthusiastic crowd. And, as I recall from last time, a very impressive state-of-the-art smoke detector, which nobody knows how to switch off…

In the meantime, Emma is pleased to offer – at very reasonable rates – evening classes in cable-coiling, for the benefit of any single young ladies who may wish to attract a mate of the musician persuasion. Although, to be honest, my advice would be to simply run away while you still can.

Thas’ yer lot for this week

Square on
A

*My favourite quote from Alice Cooper comes from an interview when he was asked what he thought of Marilyn Manson: – “He wears make-up and he has a girl’s name. How original.”

02-10-2018 – Plug And Play

‘Sup, dudes

Right, well after a somewhat trying week, I was looking forward to playing a nice noisy gig on Saturday, in honour of Emma’s mate Jez’s 50th birthday.

Eagerly we loaded the gear in, I set up my rig, plugged into it, and… nothing.

Signal is getting from the guitar as far as the tuner, but no further. I ferret out a spare cable and plug directly into the amp. Still nothing. Five minutes of frenzied panic set in.

I check all the connections – they’re fine. Just as I am debating whether I have time to dash back home and pick up my spare amp head, Stuart helpfully says “Have you checked you’ve plugged all the cables in the right way round?”

“Of course I bloody have, look, this one goes in there, that one goes in there, and that one round the back… …is in the wrong socket”.

Funny, it was all in the right place when I checked a moment ago.

I feel I should point out at this juncture that you, the taxpayer, funded me for three years to get a degree in Electrical Engineering. Money well spent, eh?

Cables swapped round, guitar plugged back in, and the room is treated to the sound of a Seymour Duncan Custom ’59 humbucker majestically pushing four EL34 valves into a luscious creamy overdrive. It makes me very happy.

Ben is even happier than me though, once he discovers the size and scope of the buffet table. It appears to be large enough to expect to find herds of wildebeest roaming majestically across it – except that apparently they have already been caught, cooked, and served up on an array of plates.

Vegetablist Stuart is, on the other hand, pleased to find a large table set aside, groaning under the weight of wholesome vegetarian fare.

“No lips or arseholes for me” he gleefully pronounces.

Emma and I agree that this is indeed a sound policy for first dates. And spend the next ten minutes giggling hopelessly.

Lovely hostess Sarah is insistent that we all eat as much as possible, and take the rest home. We really do try our best.

The rest of the night goes very well, with much daft dancing around and merriment – even when ham-fisted Alan manages to snap a string mid-song, he is able to bluff his way through to the end of it, and Emma gamely distracts the audience while he digs out spare axe and bullies it into tune in time for the next number.

Finally we run out of time and have to stop, then we set about the Herculean task of loading all the equipment and spare food into the vehicles before we can shamble away homeward.

Coming up – a nice normal weekend, two gigs, nice and local. Well, local, anyway…

Friday 5th – Giant Goram, Lawrence Weston
Despite its less-than-salubrious location, this is a really jolly friendly place, the landlady (who is from “bloody Wales”) is always up for a laugh, and just as well, really…

Saturday 6th – The Crown, Staple Hill
Just literally round the corner from Ben’s new gaffe, he can actually walk to this gig. He may even be able to walk home again afterwards. Lovely pub, they likes their rocky stuff in here – and just as well, since that’s what they’re going to be getting.

And – well, that’s it for this week – I’m off to practice plugging cable in to sockets.

Square on
A

21-03-2018 – Prancing n’ Stuff

Aloha!

Well, it seems that our fears that the Giant Goram pub in Lawrence Weston had gone all upmarket on us were mercifully unfounded…

In fact, it was just as pleasant and friendly as last time we were there, with two additional bonuses of there being a lot more customers present (that’ll be Friday night instead of Sunday afternoon, I reckon), and the fact that they had cleared out a bit more space for us before we arrived. The latter was particularly welcome, meaning we were able to set up without stumbling over each other – although we did a bit, just for appearances’ sake – and we had enough room to prance about comfortably without too much danger of knocking anything expensive over.

There were folks up dancing around pretty much as soon as we started, which always bodes well, even if it just means they were already pretty drunk before we arrived.

In fact, we were so pleased with the friendly atmosphere that, on the spot, we wrote a song just for them; we called it “Sweet Home Giant Goram”. It’s a catchy little tune, if I say so myself, although it did sound somehow familiar – almost as though it was similar to an existing number – although we racked our brains, we just couldn’t place it…

After several “just one more” encores, we finally called it a day. “It’s a day”, we said; and set about chatting with the regulars and packing up. All in all a very satisfactory evening, particularly considering we hadn’t actually played for a fortnight or so.

And this weekend, we’ll be wheeling out the old magic not once, but two times…

Friday 23rd Queen’s Tap, Swindon
Nice lively place near the railway station. It’s been a while since we played here, but as I recall they operate that very fine thing, a “free drinks for musicians” policy. Why do we not play here more often…?

Saturday 24th – Blue Lagoon, Bristol
On a quiet night, this place counts as “lively” – and on a lively night, it falls into the “a bit mental” category. Unaccountably, we seem to fit in rather well. Great fun, and usually a few pals of various stripes turn up here to amuse us as well. Rather looking forward to it…

And that, my little sarsaparillas, is that, for this week.

I leave you with this lexographical Fun Fact: –

Did you know that Eskimos have over a hundred different words to describe how crap Snow Patrol are?

Square on
A

12-03-2018 – A Valued Building

Ahoy there shipmates!

We trust you all managed to have an entertaining weekend, although if course it can’t have been easy without the undoubted pleasure of our company…

However, if you have missed us terribly, then never fear – we are back out in action this Friday, so there is an opportunity to catch up with all that is musical and lovely; although you are cautioned to avoid wearing your finest clothes for this one…

Friday 16th – Giant Goram, Lawrence Weston
Actually, when we played here before, on a Sunday afternoon, we had a fine time joshing with the locals on a Sunday afternoon, and were actually promised confectionary on our next visit. I wonder if there’s time to get some official band bibs printed off…? Also, we note that the place has gone upmarket – a quick idle-curiosity Google search revealed the news that just a couple of months ago, “Bristol City Council placed the pub on the city’s Local List of valued buildings to safeguard the city’s cultural and architectural heritage”.

As far as I can tell, this article was completely true.

I do hope that they’re not going to be too swanky now to talk to us – and in particular that they haven’t changed the sign cheerfully posted up in the gents…

Toilet Notice

Square on
A

26-09-2017 – Banoffee Absence

Hey gang

Well, if you’re reading this, then it means we survived the gigs at the weekend. Unless your computer is haunted. Just to be on the safe side, right now you should exorcise it, just in case. Just follow the following simple steps. Do not delay – do it now, even if you are in the middle of a busy open plan office. Every second you waste imperils your mortal soul. Do it NOW!

  • Lift up your computer, stand up, turn to face due North, and say in a loud, clear voice. “Begone, foul spirit! Leave this digital device, return to the Pit whence you came, and come back no more to trouble this mortal plane”.
  • Repeat the above for each of the other cardinal points of the compass.
  • Sprinkle 2.5 litres of holy water over the keyboard, whilst reciting the third verse of Stairway To Heaven (backwards) in a drawling monotone in the key of F sharp.
  • Delete this email, before your supervisor sees it.
  • Try your best to explain your actions when the industrial tribunal comes around.
  • READ MORE