Tag Archives: trout

17-07-2017 – Questionable Perfection

Evenin’ all!

Well, that constitutes a “good week”, I think – at least in that nobody broke any bones this time.

Actually, Friday night at the Trout in Keysnham was great fun, despite a couple of rather spectacular cockups from yours truly – including the classic “starting the next song without looking at your fretboard, then after half a verse slowly realising that you started in the wrong key” mistake. Nonetheless, the rather lively crowd didn’t care, and to be honest we were having so much fun we didn’t either. READ MORE

10-07-2017 – Purple Toes

Hola!

And a mighty fine weekend of gigging more than made for the tribulations of the week – the obvious highlight of which was your beloved correspondent managing to break several of his beloved bones. For those morbidly interested in such matters, see the email thread at the end of this missive for further details.

Suffice to say that by Friday I was, although slightly limping, back in a fit state for rawk’n’roll combat; thus we were able to fulfil our appointment with destiny the Assembly Inn in Bath, which turned out to be a rather nice pub, albeit very little in the way of spare room for bands to set up in. Nonetheless, we managed to shoehorn ourselves in, and after a little gentle bullying (and a few beers), the crowd agreed to enjoy themselves, so that all turned out nicely in the end. 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

27-02-2017 – Mission Failure

Yo homeys!

Well,Friday’s gig was a bit quiet. Extremely quiet.

This was at least in part due to the fact that my arrival at the venue, and starting of unloading of the kit, was met with a slightly concerned look from the barmaid who said to me. “Hang on a second, love, I’ll just get the landlady a moment…”

It transpires that there has been something of booking agent-related cock-up, and that in fact the pub has no idea we were supposed to be coming. “But didn’t you get the posters I sent a few weeks ago?” I ask. READ MORE

04-07-2016 – Duck Race

Hey gang

Another fun night out in Keynsham; up at the Trout, where there was the usual messy beer-spilling mayhem from the locals. My favourite moment of the evening occurred when Rosa decides she needs the whole pub to join with a dance move – and asks for suggestions from the audience. When none are forthcoming, as usual she picks on someone.

“You there, the lady at the back – what’s your name?”

“Er…it’s Theresa…”

“Right, Theresa, show everybody your favourite dance move”. READ MORE

27-06-2016 – Angry Kitten Tapestry

Yo ho ahoy!

Well, an entertaining and lively night at the Blue Lagoon on Friday; lovely daughter Lily came along with her best mate for some (now legal) drinking and dancing around. I was vastly amused watching a number of drunken youths attempting to seduce them via the medium of interpretative dance; and while our pal Muddy was sat watching and itching to thump them all, I was more in favour of the gentle tap on the shoulder and the magic words, “That’s my daughter”. As it happened, the girls declared themselves unfazed by the yoofs, so we left things alone. READ MORE

15-02-2016 – Silly Rock

What ho!

Well, another weekend in rawk’n’roll, another triumph of amiably bumbling about and somehow managing to overcome technical difficulties despite astronomical ineptitude…

Friday at the Trout started off none-too-well, as I discovered on setting up that my amp foot switch has suffered a nervous breakdown and so I have lost one channel of my amp. Never mind, at least it still makes a noise, it just means I’ll have to think about what I’m doing a bit carefully. Ben, meanwhile, has also lost his volume-boosting ability due to a cable failure – thus the pair of us spend the gig fiddling with our knobs a little more frantically than usual. READ MORE

09-02-2016 – Of Cupcakes And Nipples

Hey peeps!

Well, if you weren’t there on Saturday, you missed a mighty fine night up at the Queen Vic in Stroud – despite the foul weather, there was plenty of fun to be had, with lots of silliness and dancing around. We were especially pleased to see some ol’ chums show up, and I was quite touched by how many were concerned for my health, after having read last week’s little missive.

I think the highlight of the evening for me was when Rosa, by way of announcing our next song (which is a moderately dreadful number originally by Katy Perry, but which Ben and I have done our best to turn into a grunge metal slag heap), asks the audience to see if they can guess, “Who has previously performed with cupcakes on their nipples?” READ MORE

05-05-2015 – Guitar Madness

May the Fourth Be With You.

No, no, I’m not a day late, I’m just really early for next year, okay?

Right, well we hope you enjoyed your sunny Blank Holiday weekend; mine was quite chilled, actually, thanks for asking – with Dem away down at Land’s End with the two most maniacal offspring, I managed to get a cheeky half hour in the guitar shop playing away on the lovely items hanging on their wall…

Unfortunately the upshot of all this is that I now need another guitar… If anybody has any suggestions as to how I can justify this to the Internal Finance Committee, I’d be glad of some assistance. READ MORE

27-04-2015 – Awwwww, bless!

Beneficent salutations faithful readers.

Well, it looks like my predictions from last week’s were fairly accurate; with daughter Lil at the Mail Coach on Saturday, things did indeed get quite lively towards the Tina Turner end of the set; by the end of the night, several of the lovely locals were queueing up to buy us drinks, and to tell Lily she was “fabulous”. I reckon next time we’ll just let Lil wheel out a shedload of her musical theatre tosh, and they’ll be sobbing in the aisles.

I will be, for one… READ MORE