Tag Archives: halloween

Gig Log

21-08-2017 – Trouserless Combat Vomiting

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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

Gig Log

14-08-2017 – The Holy Guitarist

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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

Gig Log

07-08-2017 – The Holland Splutter

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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

Gig Log

17-07-2017 – Questionable Perfection

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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

Gig Log

10-07-2017 – Purple Toes

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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

Gig Log

03-07-2017 – Kinda Sporty

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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

Gig Log

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

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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

Gig Log

13-06-2017 – Whiteboard Affection

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Well hello there, my little inflatables…

And I’m glad to report that we’re now finally up to full strength, and what passes for normality around these parts can be resumed.

As Friday, and Emma’s debut gig with us, loomed large, it was almost inevitable that she’d contract a nasty coldy flu-y chest-infectiony thing, spending most the week poorly off from work, and turning up at rehearsal on Thursday (yes, we do actually rehearse this stuff sometimes, thank you very much) distinctly croaky, and delivering the vocals for some of the more demanding numbers via the medium of interpretive dance… READ MORE

Gig Log

05-06-2017 – New Amp Optimism With Added Singer

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Hola homeys…

Apologies that I didn’t get around to sending one of these out last week, I’ve been feeling a bit poorly. Gifts of flowers, cards, sympathy, and particularly cash, will all be welcome.

I’ve not, however, been as poorly as my equipment, which seems to be taking great delight in letting me down at gigs*, whilst nonchalantly behaving itself at practices and during prolonged fault-finding engineering investigations. Nonetheless, having gone through absolutely every item in the signal chain between my guitar strings and the victim’s ear holes, and replaced a whole bunch of components – connectors, leads, jack sockets, etc, I think that actually I may be on top of things again. READ MORE

Gig Log

22-05-2017 – When Nothing Goes To Plan!

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Hey gang

You ever get a week when nothing goes to plan?

Yup, me too.

We didn’t manage to fit a rehearsal in this week, due to a series of unplanned crises, but nonetheless I still managed to bugger up my nice shiny new amp; it’s suddenly started making a noise like a hornet’s nest, and since I’ve already replaced all the valves, this can mean only one thing – an expensive repair bill…

Still, while it’s out of action, we can still gig, because foresighted Alan has not one but two spare amps he can take along; thus equipped, we rolled up on Saturday to a rather nice venue in Dursley, where we are shown into a small bar area, which we immediately just know is going to be acoustically a bit messy. READ MORE