Tag Archives: locomotive

13-06-2017 – Whiteboard Affection

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

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

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

07-11-2016 – Yeah, Stuff

Hey gang

Well, firstly apologies to anybody who fetched up to the Old Neighbourhood in Chalford hoping to catch us – as you’ll have already found out, we weren’t there. This was due to an unfortunate forgot-to-renew-their-music-licence episode from the pub’s head office management – it wasn’t our fault, honest it wasn’t! Still, it could have been worse – my pal Little Ian’s band had had to cancel their gig on Friday – for the second time in a row at the same venue – thanks to their drummer repeatedly falling off things and injuring himself. READ MORE

31-10-2016 – Of Halloween And French Maids

Well, how do you do,

I see you’ve met my faithful handyman…

If that makes no sense to you, folks, Google it for context…

Friday night, and the New Crown Inn in Bath. Earlier in the week, the landlord had called to let us know they were making it a Halloween fancy dress night, if we fancied joining in.

Do bears poo in the woods?

So, an email was duly sent around all band members, explaining the dress code, with a stern reminder that, as per school PE lessons, anybody who forgets their kit has to play in their pants. I cunningly covered both options by plumbing for a Rocky Horror outfit. READ MORE

18-07-2016 – Inflatables

Good morning campers!

My, that was an interesting Saturday night. We rolled up at the Locomotive in Swindon, to find a mob in fancy dress, largely – but by no means entirely – Scottish themed, the reason for this never quite becoming clear over the course of the evening. What was clear was that they weren’t a shy, retiring bunch. I have to say that I have never in my life seen so many giant inflatable willies in one place. In retrospect, something I’m probably quite glad about.

Poor Ben didn’t have the best of nights; he’s brought along his new shiny wireless system – but alas, because it has an oddball stereo jack on it, his complex high-tech active bass refuses to work with it – basically the act of plugging the wireless in switches the bass off. READ MORE

11-07-2016 – AAARRRGGGHHHEEEYYYUUURRRGGGHHH

Top o’ the mornin’ to ye, begorrah, and similar nonsense.

As I’m a bit pushed for time today, I’ll keep this short – just the edited highlights.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Best moment from Saturday night’s traditionally lively gig at the Queen Vic in Stroud; Rosa’s rather bizarre request to the audience between songs, somewhere in the second set…

“Right everybody, what I want you to do now is to look at the person on your left… and lick their face!!”.

This was immediately followed by another announcement, READ MORE