Tag Archives: swindon

Gig Log

17-09-2018 – Fried Hippy Mobius Strips

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Yo homies!

Well, we have no gigging to report on this weekend – apart from a rather excellent night Stuart and I had with our sloppy prog outfit the All Night Chemists, up at the delightful Folly Inn in Napton, near Warwick. Lovely pub, in the middle of nowhere but right by the canal, and hence host to a whole fleet of hippies in narrowboats.

Quite a way to go for a gig, but it was well worth it – a private function for one of singer Rich’s fellow boating chums, a lovely setting, and as we were the beneficiaries of Rich’s hospitality for the night – no need to drive home after the gig. READ MORE

Gig Log

10-09-2018 – Changing Fortunes

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Hello, my little ones.

Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

Thursday night in Chipping Sodbury, and I roll up, somewhat knackered after a busy day, to find Ben and Stuart already there and loaded in. Stuart parks his car, then we set about emptying the van and setting up. A rather frazzled Emma appears, she has apparently had a “difficult” week at work, and “is ready for some serious jumping about and screaming”. Just, in fact, what we have in mind.

We’ve decided to play a high risk strategy tonight, lots of old rocky songs we haven’t played in a l-o-o-ng time, to see if we can remember them. Remarkably, by and large, we can. We’d also forgotten how much fun they are. Thus, by the time we’ve finished thumping out the Maiden and AC/DC covers at the end of the night, our Emma is feeling much cheered up. Ben is also pleased to find two fellow Yorkshiremen in the audience, who are huge fun. I’m tempted to ask them how they’re coping down here with such strange new things as electricity, and running water, but I settle instead for hiding my wallet, just in case. READ MORE

Gig Log

03-09-2018 – Oooh, Look, Dolphins!

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Well, we’re back!

After a week away, variously climbing up Snowdon, watching dolphins frolicking off the coast of Kent, drinking excellent beer in my favourite Brighton pub – which I found completely unchanged after 30 years away – hurrah! – and doing whatever it is that Ben and Stuart get up to when left to their own devices, it was time to get back together to make a loud noise again up at the dear ol’ Swan in Thornbury.

Having literally just got home after a seven hour drive with a spakky shoulder, swapping vehicles and come straight to the gig, yours truly had his excuses neatly lined up for playing like a retarded chimp in boxing gloves. So that’s pretty much what I did. READ MORE

Gig Log

04-06-2018 – Klingon Birthday

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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

Gig Log

31-05-2018 – Of Mating Rituals

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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

Gig Log

21-05-2018 – Mr Mellow

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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

Gig Log

26-03-2018 – Rabbits In Your Pants

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Hey gang

You’re receiving this missive a bit early this week, as I’m not here, so I’m sending it in advance of actually writing it, thanks to a basic misunderstanding of how time works.

Friday at the Queen’s Tap in Swindon was rather good fun, thanks largely to our pal and guest drummer Sarina and her bevy of bandmates. At half time we slumped down and stared at the big telly screen, which was showing a newsreader of some kind. We noticed that although she appeared to be calm and professional, her eyebrows were quite animated. Luckily, knowledgeable Alan has the explanation. READ MORE

Gig Log

21-03-2018 – Prancing n’ Stuff

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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. READ MORE

Gig Log

03-01-2018 – Virus At 2018 O’clock

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…And a Happy Noo Year to all our readers!

We hope all had nearly as much fun as we did over the festering season (but not quite as much, obviously, that simply wouldn’t be right).

I’d report back on the gigs we played, but it’s all a bit of a blur really… I do recall that Christmas Eve in the Sandringham in Downend was huge fun, very nice place and a definitely silly crowd – we ended up stretching the second set out to the best part of 2 hours…

Just after Xmas, poor Emma succumbed to a Horrible Throat Lurgy that left her unable to even speak (she even had to send me text messages in mime), which put a couple of gigs in jeopardy. Since we didn’t fancy gigs in Jeopardy (or anywhere else abroad) we were very lucky to have talented daughter Lily step into the breach and cover for us. An absolute lifesaver, and very fortunate that she was both available and in need of the money! READ MORE

Gig Log

18-12-2017 – Xmas Choir Killer Review

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Well, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers!

I’ll keep this missive fairly short, as I am currently at work in between resolving work-type disasters, whilst trapped at a desk within earshot of the works annual Christmas Choir Carol Concert – I can’t get away, and I didn’t bring a flamethrower, so you’ll have to excuse the somewhat cursory nature of this one.

Last weekend provided a very entertaining surprise birthday party gig, held at a large film studio – enormous big studio, loads of guests, and more lighting effects than you could shake a very big stick at. We came, we set up, and at the allotted hour the Birthday boy was led in blindfolded, and on cue we launched into playing a heavy metallised version of Happy Birthday just as his blindfold we removed… a rather cool way to start a gig, I think. We managed to make enough noise to fill the large space adequately, thanks to the magic of Stuart Hitting Things Very Hard Indeed, and the rest of us cranking the amps rather more than they’re used to. Lovely! READ MORE