Tag Archives: music school

Gig Log

02-03-2015 – Inappropriate Dodgems

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Hello possums!

Well, that’s the last bit of rawk’n’roll action we’ll see for a couple of weeks; on Friday, we opted to separate into small groups in order bother the drinking public in a more flexible and detailed manner. Thus it was that I decamped to the Clothiers in Stroud with young Lily for one of our acoustic/electric hybrid gigs, while Lou hit up Keynsham with her Loops duo act. And I think both gigs went rather well; ours did, even after Lil’s opening comment, “If anybody is still eating their dinner, we’re sorry for disturbing your meal – and if there is anything you can’t quite finish up; well – I’m here to help you out… …Two, three, four…”. READ MORE

Gig Log

23-02-2015 – Fish Tea

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Hola, homeys!

Ahhh, a whole weekend off… except for young Lou, of course, who apparently had an excellent weekend gigging with her other projects. I really don’t know how she manages to keep up.

So, as I can’t give you any first-hand reports of rawk’n’roll action this week, we’d better keep this thing pretty short. The one thing I can tell you, following on from last week’s missive, is that the very best tea / fish pun that anybody managed to come up with was as follows: –

DarjEeling. READ MORE

Gig Log

16-02-2015 – Tired Pub

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My my, hey hey*

Well, that was a strange old Saturday. February 14th, Valentine’s Day, and what more romantic way to spend it than to be playing a gig fifty miles away from your loved one in the middle of Nowhereshire…?

Lou at least had thought this one through a bit, and actually brought her young man along with her; unfortunately for him, since he was the only one who actually sat anywhere near the band, this meant he got persistently harangued by their resident outspoken lady, American Mary, who spent most the evening exhorting the rest of the punters, who were hiding at the far end of the pub (and who can blame them) to “get up and shake your butts”. READ MORE

Gig Log

09-02-2015 – Deepest Zummerzet

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Hey folks

Well, Friday at the Red Lion in Staple Hill started off in a slightly disappointing way, with an hour’s wait before we could start playing, thanks to the England – Wales match. And after all that, the Welsh didn’t even win. Still, once we got going, it was a fine night, we were just banging out tune after tune trying to fit as much in as we could in the remaining time. Strangely, my suggestion that we play everything a double speed was not met with universal approval – Ben instead choosing to save time by playing one song while I was playing another. READ MORE

Gig Log

03-02-2015 – Rammed

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Wassup dudes

Yet more rawk’n’roll silliness this week; Friday night at the Windmill in Swindon featured some spectacular dance moves from the locals, which had us in stitches; and also a special guest percussionist spot, with our new friend Sarina from local rawk outfit Broken Image – somebody has kindly posted a clip of us playing along with her on the old favourite “Rock and Roll” – originally written, of course, by our Illionois-based chums Band Of The Lost, but then shamelessly nicked by obscure ne’er-do-wells Led Zeppelin – if you find yourself wandering aimlessly about on Facebook at any time see if you can find it. She’s a rather fine hitter of drummy things, as it turns out, and hopefully we’ll catch up with her again next time we’re in those parts. READ MORE

Gig Log

26-01-2015 – Granddad Dancing

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Aye oop, lad!

Well, as another weekend full of rawk’n’roll fun sails majestically past down the river of Time, flowing relentlessly onwards to the Sea of Oblivion, and we stand thoughtfully on the banks of the Present gazing into the distant horizon of Eternity, where the birds of Desire fly homewards to their nests of Remembrance silhouetted against the sunset of Significance, I can’t help but wish I’d remembered to put some trousers on.

Young Lily and I ventured up to Swindon on a freezing Friday night; we arrived at the Tap & Barrel to find it pretty quiet, but the folks that were there seemed nice and friendly. By the time we’d set up it was a bit more populated, and by a stroke of luck we more-or-less managed to remember the whole set. Not that it mattered too much, I don’t think they were too fussy; there was reasonable amount of singing along and jigging about, and we were even treated to some granddad dancing (imagine dad dancing, only much, much more so) from a very amiable chap, whose name remains a mystery – as was everything else he said. Full marks for incomprehensible muttering, that man! But, he seemed to be happy enough. READ MORE

Gig Log

19-01-2015 – Ish Me Birfday

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Hey gang

Well, that was an absolutely tip-top weekend of fun, at least for me!

There was much birthday-related shenanigans, which started with my lovely chums at work presenting me with a large, beautifully gift-wrapped parcel, which I was advised not to open in the office “because of the presents rock n’ roll connotations”.

I rushed home, and you can imagine my excitement as I feverishly unwrapped it, to find it contained….

…another parcel, equally gift-wrapped.

Eventually, I found my way through the layers of wrapping paper to discover… READ MORE

Gig Log

12-01-2015 – Blue Lagoon Birthday

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Hi folks!

I wasn’t planning to write one of these this week, as we didn’t play any gigs this weekend, and we didn’t have any planned for next weekend.

However, the Gods Of Rock are fickle and unpredictable, and thus it transpires that this Friday, Angel Up Front have yet another appointment with destiny…

Friday Jan 16th – The Blue Lagoon, Gloucester Rd, Bristol
A new venue for us, but apparently it’s a rather popular hangout for the nocturnal denizens of the Horfield Strip. And, popular or otherwise, I shall be making a particular effort to hang out, seeing as it’s my birthday that day. I shall make a spirited attempt to persuade my lovely other half to drive the van so that I can (rather selflessly I feel) make sure I don’t to disappoint anybody in the area who may have come along for the sole purpose of buying me drinks. You are advised to come early to beat the queues… READ MORE

Gig Log

05-01-2015 – The Life Cycle Of The Breville Toasted Sandwich Maker

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..And a Happy New Year to all our readers!

This morning, driving in to work, I was rather perturbed to see that – even though it’s still some 353 days until Christmas – some people have got their decorations up already!

Still, we hope you all had a lovely time eating and drinking to excess; plus whatever else takes your fancy, of course.

We certainly enjoyed the break, we even managed to squeeze in a few gigs – including a jolly evening in the Portcullis in Fishponds just after Christmas; where, because Lou had texted me earlier complaining of a chest infection and warning that she wasn’t sure her voice would last the night, as a precaution I took along our emergency spare band – the erratically mighty Polar Bear Cheese Pirates From Outer Space. In the event, Lou’s voice held out fine, but since Dem’s folks had turned out to see us, we put the kids on as well anyway. (I have finally arrived at the conclusion that the real reason folks are so fond of their grandchildren is because they know that they are putting their parents through exactly the same trauma and exasperation as the parents put the grandparents through years before. Which I am sure is the only reason why my offspring seemed to get louder applause than AUF did…). READ MORE

Gig Log

15-12-2014 – Firemen

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Yo ho-ho-homeys (see what I did there?)

Well, it appears to be the gig-cancelling season – not only was last Saturday’s planned outing to the Ferndale Club in sunny Swindon called off due to some double-booking high jinks at their end, but also this coming Friday’s bash at the Reckless Engineer in Bristol is also abandoned thanks to some fairly spectacular ineptitude on their part. Still, there are some gigs surviving…

…Last Friday, for example; when we went all the way down to sunny Wincanton in deepest darkest Zummerzet – hadn’t realised quite how far away it was until I got there (eh??) whereupon I immediately sent a warning text back to Lou to be sure to leave in good time, to make sure she had a full tank of petrol and ample food supplies with her, and Not To Stray From The Path or talk to any naughty goblins on the way. As it turned out, I was later told that Wincanton is in fact twinned with Ankh-Morpork – so I wasn’t too far wrong. READ MORE