Tag Archives: thornbury

Gig Log

08-05-2018 – Ol’ Bun Ears

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Right, this’ll be a quick one – there’s no gigs coming up this weekend, so there’s not much point me writing this to tell you about them, really.

In fact – actually, why AM I sat here in front of a keyboard on a warm sunny evening when I could be sat outside in the garden enjoying the balmy ambience whilst sipping a nice cold beer?

I can’t think of a reason, either.

I’m off to the garden.

Square on
A

PS – Oh, all right then, look, we played the Swan on Friday; when we started we were the only people in the pub, but by half time the place was jumping, and it ended up being a jolly successful night. Full credit for this goes to Emma, who – to celebrate Star Wars Day – had arranged her hair into a pair of Danish pastries, and was very pleased with herself – until I pointed out that, since George Lucas got bought out by the House Of Mouse, she was in fact now technically dressed as a Disney Princess… READ MORE

Gig Log

30-04-2018 – Viking Gearbox

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Hey gang

Well, another day, another dollar… less income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions, council tax…. Hey! Where’d all my money go?

I know where Stuart’s went – it went to his local garage, after his gearbox spontaneously exploded a couple of weeks ago. Still, he actually got his repaired chariot back this week, in time for a mighty fine gig up at the Old Bank in Keynsham. Thanks to a crowd that got larger, and louder (and, I have to say, more drunk) as the evening went on, we had an excellent night. They didn’t even mind when Stuart (obviously preoccupied with how he was going to pay his garage bill) lost his place mid-song, and suddenly stopped, thinking we’d reached the end. Being consummate professionals (ahem), we stopped too, leaving the crowd singing along high and dry all on their own. Amateurs! READ MORE

Gig Log

08-01-2018 – The Selfish Virus, With Cake!

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Gooood morning, chums!

Well, I have to say that there was rather less rawk’n’roll in that weekend than we’d hoped.

It all started so well, with Em having declared herself fit for Friday’s gig at the Swan in Thornbury after her bout of horrible flu lurgy; we rolled up, we set up, and – come the allotted hour – we started playing.

Two songs in, and suddenly poor Em’s voice cracks as she approaches some high notes without due care and attention. She manages to finish the song, but only by conveying the choruses by the medium of interpretive dance. 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

09-10-2017 – The Laughing Chaffinch

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Aye oop!

Well, we had a rather spiffing Saturday evening at the Swan up in Thornbury; a chance to give my “official gigging amp head” a rant after several weeks in hospital; it’s like having a new amp, at least in that I can’t quite remember what all the foot switch controls do, which led to one or two rather interesting moments, when I cut into what should have been a screaming rawk solo, but accidentally tried to play it with an gentle acoustic timbre…

Still, I wasn’t the only one struggling a bit; in the very first number, there’s a moment where the whole band stop, and there’s a vocal cue that we all come back in after. Somebody in the crowd was singing along, but massively out of time, and Stuart, momentarily distracted, decided to go with them rather than with Emma. Oopsie. He made up for it later on, though, by simply totally forgetting what to play midway through a song, settling instead for banging a few drums at random, with a delightfully nonplussed expression on his little chops. READ MORE

Gig Log

03-10-2017 – Ol’ Sparkly Ears

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‘Sup dudes? – as we young people say…

Another weekend, another round of gigging silliness… Following a rather successful jaunt with my retro-prog-acid-rock chums the All Night Chemists, playing an afternoon set at a lovely little festival in the Forest Of Dean – a fine “proper festival” event, not a normal person in sight – it was down to central Bristol for a jaunt to the rather less unconventional (i.e. lager-swilling) Molloy’s.

When I stop on the way to pick up Emma, I am moved to ask our silver-larynx-ed heroine why she is wearing a pair of sparkly black cat’s ears on her head. She looks puzzled. “I think the question is”, she replies, “Why aren’t YOU wearing a pair of sparkly black cat’s ears on your head?” I have to concede this is a reasonable point. READ MORE

Gig Log

21-08-2017 – Trouserless Combat Vomiting

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Ahoy there shipmates!

So nice to be out playing again, I think we can put last weekend firmly into the “damned good fun” box for safe keeping.

Following a pleasing night at the Rolly in Swindon – where sadly we missed our regular local maniac Mad Freddy, but instead were treated to Mad Dancing Andy Warhol, and a definitely enthusiastic crowd – it was on the following night to the Swan in Thornbury for a jolly family knees-up.

Since Dem and Lil were away, it seemed best to bring my two youngest lads along and play a few songs with them, with a combination of Ben & Emma on vocals, plus young Joe making his public vocal debut on one of his favourite Green Day numbers. Whilst playing bass. So, that’s one of my offspring simultaneously doing two things that I can’t do. Evolution in action. READ MORE

Gig Log

14-08-2017 – The Holy Guitarist

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Hola, mes amigos!

Right, so after a weekend over which I’m pretty sure I didn’t even touch a guitar – being too busy as I was constructing a temple in the back garden, the reasons for which I am sure Dem will be able to explain to me in due course – we have little to report this week (I’m assuming here that a detailed itinerary of my dealings with timber merchants and a catalogue of minor injuries sustained during the building process will be of only minor interest).

However, we do have a nice, normal two-gig weekend coming up to look forward to… READ MORE

Gig Log

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

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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

Gig Log

22-05-2017 – When Nothing Goes To Plan!

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Hey gang

You ever get a week when nothing goes to plan?

Yup, me too.

We didn’t manage to fit a rehearsal in this week, due to a series of unplanned crises, but nonetheless I still managed to bugger up my nice shiny new amp; it’s suddenly started making a noise like a hornet’s nest, and since I’ve already replaced all the valves, this can mean only one thing – an expensive repair bill…

Still, while it’s out of action, we can still gig, because foresighted Alan has not one but two spare amps he can take along; thus equipped, we rolled up on Saturday to a rather nice venue in Dursley, where we are shown into a small bar area, which we immediately just know is going to be acoustically a bit messy. READ MORE