Tag Archives: keynsham

29-10-2018 – Beer Yoofs Adventures

Good morning!

Winter draws on, I see – although frankly, vicar, I don’t see what business it is of yours – and I have to report a very, very messy weekend’s gigging.

Friday night at the Woodland’s Edge, and our poor Emma turns up looking very unwell indeed, having picked up a nasty stomach bug from somewhere. “I’ve not tried singing yet today”, she tells us, “just in case it makes me vomit”.

“Well, if it does”, I tell her, “Drumkit”.

As we start loading in, it is apparent that there is a plague of yoofs upon this house, boisterously ensconced right next to where we need to set up. I’m sure their mummies love them, but they’re a pain in the arse for everybody else. READ MORE

22-10-2018 – New VanOfAlan

Aloha!

Right folks, this’ll be a short one (as they say)…

Saturday night’s gig at the Hunstman in Downend – which I see from their website has the “style of a modern pub, and the atmosphere of a traditional inn” – was greatly cheered by the presence of a few chums; and almost nobody else.

It often seems to be the way in here – doesn’t really seem to be a music-y pub – nonetheless, they keep asking us back, and they keep paying us, and it actually makes for a nice relaxing night from our point of view. Plus, it means we can run through numbers we haven’t done for a while, to see if we can still remember them, without too much risk of public humiliation – and so, when requested for an old Fleetwood Mac track we haven’t played for many months, after a quick head-scratch as Ben and I tried to remember what the first chord was, we agreed to have a go at it. 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. READ MORE

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. READ MORE

04-06-2018 – Klingon Birthday

Hola amigos!

I’ll keep this one short again -’cause the sun is shining in the garden, and there’s a beer waiting for me.

I’ll just briefly tell the tale of Saturday’s escapade to the Lamb in Marlborough – being just a couple of days shy of Ben’s 30th birthday, we figured this would be the best time to give him his pressies.

Now, I think it’s fair to say that our Ben is just a teeny tiny tad geeky, so he was immensely pleased when Emma presented him with a special set of many-sided dice, fantasy role-playing games for the use of. He did later admit that he already owns around a dozen sets of said dice, but that nonetheless these ones were absolutely necessary, as they’re especially shiny. READ MORE

31-05-2018 – Of Mating Rituals

Hey gang

Well, we hope you had at least as much fun as we did this weekend. We started off with a slot at Ship fest, in The Ship Inn in Keynsham, which turned out to have outside bars, several food stalls, and even a proper stage, PA, and engineer – the latter three of which could only, unfortunately, be accessed by some precipitous steps made of scaffolding. Ben was delighted. So was the sound engineer when, having offered to help us down with the kit, saw how much was rammed in the back of my little van… READ MORE

21-05-2018 – Mr Mellow

Hola amigos!

Writing this as I am on a balmy Sunday evening, still slightly pissed from this afternoon’s gentle party in the sunshine, I must say what an enormously satisfactory weekend that was!

We started with a rare school night gig on Thursday night at the Oak in Sodding Chipbury – and I was delighted to run into a couple long-lost pals there. Once we started playing, the usual small-but-friendly crowd slowly grew into a larger-but-friendlier crowd, and so by the end of the night everybody seemed to be having an immense hoot. Lovely! READ MORE

23-04-2018 – Chrono Error 23

Well, that was a scorcher of a weekend (as the Super Soaraway Sun would undoubtedly have it); very hot indeed on Friday night, which probably accounted for the reduced turnout at the Old Mail House, with a huge percentage of potential punters still in their back gardens quaffing stubbies of lager and giving themselves food poisoning from eating blackened raw chicken.

To be fair, there were still quite a few merrymakers in, boosted by some old chums of Stuart’s who were there for one of their number’s retirement party. Retirement? But Stuart claims to be 23… READ MORE

12-02-2018 – Kitten Lung & Other Stories

Hola Amigos

Welcome to this week’s Tour Diary, a summary of a relentless three consecutive days out on the road, treading the boards to bring entertainment to the drinking masses of the South West. Oh, it’s a hard life.

No, really, actually it is. Your favourite axe-spanker has been rather poorly this week; suffering firstly from a nasty van condition, which had me pedestrianized for half the week, until being heroically fixed by my favourite local garage (Green Lane in Olveston, should you need any car repairs – shameless plug for a fine automotive repair establishment) – and then from an unpleasant chest infection, which manifests itself at least in part by my one of my lungs making a worrying purring sound if I’m lying down. READ MORE

30-10-2017 – Crutch Guitar

Hola, amigos,

Another jolly fine weekend; nice and local for a change. Friday night at the Swan in Thornbury was massively improved by the presence of some lovely old friends, who help us carry the kit in and out and buy us drinks. The rest of you take note – this is the kind of behaviour we like to see!

There are a also a couple of videos they kindly posted up on the Facebook page to commemorate the event, including some rather accomplished inflatable guitar action… Well, we like that kind of thing. READ MORE