Tag Archives: tern

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

06-03-2017 – Strappy Man

Hola, homeys and honeys!

Another weekend of pub rawk jollity; starting with a rather lively night at the Trout in Keynsham; somewhat enlivened by the presence of my old boss, King Howard, and his retinue of alcohol-fuelled relatives. I am introduced to his brother-in-law with the words, “This is Martin, I apologise in advance”. Apparently Martin, when he has been over zealously applying alcoholic beverages to his metabolism, can sometimes become rather demonstratively affectionate, “in a homoerotic way”. My look of puzzlement prompts further clarification. “Last week, he tried to bum me”, explains Howard. We leave Martin to talk to Stuart, who we figure will be glad of the attention, should the need arise. READ MORE

05-01-2017 – Another Noo Year

Happy New  Year, folks!

We hope you all had a spanktastic festive season, we certainly did…

Gig reports (as far as I can remember them) are suitably cheery – just before Christmas we played the Farmhouse in Yate, which turned out to be a rather better night than anticipated, thanks to a fairly solid cohort of slightly bonkers locals – including one fine lady, whose name alas I have forgotten, who was something of an urban hairdresser – a “street stylist”, if you will – she spent much of the evening unaccountably weaving plaits into the hair of various other members of the clientèle, and when she spotted Ben’s flowing tresses, her face lit up with an evil grin. READ MORE

23-12-2016 – Lil Deps

Ahoy there shipmates!

Well, Friday at the ‘Cullis was an interesting evening. We arrived to find that the pub has changed hands since we were last here, and they’ve done it up a bit. In fact, there’s even a nice little drum riser, which should nicely enhance our professional rawk’n’roll credibility. And now that I’ve got my new amp back from the doctors, I have an impressive six-foot high stack of backline, which I think also helps to substantially enhance our professional rawk’n’roll credibility. READ MORE

12-12-2016 – And now …

Hey gang…

I’d like to apologise for last week’s intro to this little missive, in which you were all exhorted to “deck the halls with bowls of jelly” – I have been corrected by some of my more Viking-orientated correspondents, and we apparently should in fact have been encouraging you all to

“Deck the halls with the blood of your enemies”.

Valhalla-la-la

Valhalla-la.

I trust that one’s sorted out now. Also, apologies that this one is coming to you all a little later in the day than was intended, there was a minor mishap with an airplane and a fog bank which meant I couldn’t actually get to a laptop until mid-afternoon, despite having crawled out of bed at the unholy hour of 5am. I must stress that this was clearly not my fault, I don’t control fog – I only do lightning. READ MORE

19-09-2016 – Blofeld

Ahoy there shipmates!

Aharr!!!!!!

Since this be International Talk Like A Pirate Day, we decided to dress up appropriately for Friday’s gig at the Tern in Yate. And what did we learn?

We learned that if Rosa wears an eye patch, she looks like a pirate.
And if Alan wears an eye patch, he looks like a pirate.
And if Ben wears an eye patch, he looks like a pirate.
And if Stuart wears an eye patch, he looks like a Bond villain. [Editor’s note: Blofeld didn’t actually wear an eye patch, that was Emilo Largo] READ MORE

09-05-2016 – Ginger Amy

Aloha!

Well, guess what, another weekend, another couple of gigs…

After last weekend’s little surprise, we were hoping that nobody was going to take their top off during a gig.

Well, they didn’t…

Friday at the Tern in Yate was worthy of mention though, it was enlivened by a bunch who were in celebrating somebody’s birthday, and they all managed to get themselves into a rather advanced state of disrepair. Thus it was that we got some fairly lively audience interaction going on; in particular, one rather hirsute young gentleman, who was so keen to join in that when Rosa introduced an Amy Winehouse number by asking if there was anybody named Amy in the room, he raised his hand enthusiastically and shouted “Me! Me!”… Similarly, when Rosa commented on the warm weather, asking if anybody had had to resort to sunblock yet, he also piped up, “Yes, I did! I had to, I’m as ginger as f*&k!”. READ MORE

03-05-2016 – No Title

Hey gang

Well, a relatively quiet blank holiday weekend for us, just the one outing to Caldicot, to the rather nice Cellar Bar. Rosa’s opening gambit rather took the locals by surprise, though.

After whispering in my ear to check where we actually are tonight, she greets the audience by announcing us, and then asking them, “So, what is there to do on a Saturday night here in Caldicot, then…?”

There is a moment’s silent pause for reflection, before a number of them shout out simultaneously, “DRINK!!!” READ MORE