The Horseshoe, Bowlish

So, the first gig of 2012 last Saturday at the Horseshoe in Bowlish, Shepton Mallet, and also our first gig as a four-piece following our Mick's decision to leave for personal reasons a few weeks ago. A real shame that, and I don't know where we'll find a replacement with anything like as much talent, but until we do we'll soldier on regardless - there's a good load of gigs stacked up for 2012 already, although our plans for recording will have to go on hold for the time being.
We were lucky that the four of us made it to this one, as snow was settling on ungritted roads right across Somerset, and I nearly left the road several times on the way to meet the others, at one point going downhill in a barely-controlled slide past dozens of cars stuck trying to go uphill...
Once in the van though, the sheer weight kept us anchored (fairly) securely to the road and we arrived in one piece, although as Chris observed "If you think I'm driving back tonight, you've got another think coming..."
Landlady Stephanie was very pleased to see us, as it was her birthday do, and the night went off very nicely indeed, the beer flowed merrily late into the night, and in the small hours the Landlord started a whisky tasting session that nearly crossed from hospitality into hospitalisation... I think it was the 46% English whisky that did for me in the end (nothing to do with the previous six, or all those pints of Butcombe, oh no), but by all accounts I suddenly decided it was time to retire for the night and collapsed to the floor like a chainsawed Redwood (oh alright, a small Christmas tree), luckily managing to hit a mattress on the way down...

 I awoke in the cold light of dawn to find my face inches from Nick the drummer's, surrounded by a fuggy miasma of whisky fumes and pork scratchings, and snoring like a bandsaw.

Whimpering piteously, I crawled to the kitchen in search of a kettle, and as I looked out of the window I could see the snow had all melted - we could go home.

Damm... ;-)
http://www.thehorseshoebowlish.co.uk/

It's 2012, you can come out now...

So, as the cleansing rain of 2012 blasts the pavements clean of the puddles of vomit left behind by the last amateur drinkers of 2011, a whole new diary lies empty and pristine, with very few gigs in it as yet...
One place we do know we'll be back in is the Oxford in Totterdown, Bristol - scene of our last gig of 2011 a couple of weeks ago, and a great way to end the year it was too; rather like the Stag & Hounds, this is a good sized pub that has recently been turned into a music venue by someone with real commitment to live music, who actually knows what they're doing. Proper stage, lights & PA, lots of wood and sofas, something happening every night, and most importantly lots of people jumping about!
A real pleasure to do, and we'll be back no less than three times in 2012, so they must have liked us too.

We're hoping to do some more recording this year, as there's a backlog of songs building up we really need to get down... just need to work out how we can afford it! Meanwhile, time to start filling up that diary a bit...

The Stag and Hounds

The Stag & Hounds is a massive pub in Bristol’s busy Old Market, which until recently was a place for suited types to have lunch in whilst barking into mobile phones, but since it was taken over by the people that run Mothers Ruin it’s had a new lease of life.
The place reeks of history, with parts of it going back to the 15^th century, and for a time it was the home of the ‘Pie Poudre’ – a local court where miscreants were tried upstairs, found guilty, and promptly hanged out the front of the pub.

It’s luvverly now though, loads of comfy sofas, good beer and open fires and a refreshing commitment to original music that’s increasingly rare nowadays:
First up tonight was Leo Sampson, a young singer/guitarist who also plays harmonica, which is something I’m always envious of, as I find it difficult enough to play one instrument at a time, let alone two. Excellent songs, well played, but he needs to work on the inbetween bits – 30 seconds of silence while you select the right gob-iron for the next song is a long time in a quiet pub…
Next up is Howlin’ Lord, who, with his full band is well established on the circuit as a purveyor of Country Rock par excellence, but is in acoustic solo form tonight, which works fantastically… if anything his songs are more powerful performed this way, I reckon.
Howly also does the desk duty tonight, so he has the headache of making us sound good, and he did a fine job, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I? ;)
Luckily, everyone else in the place seemed to agree, and this was one of the nicest pub gigs we’ve done this year – great venue, really appreciative audience, good sound… the only fly in the ointment for us was Mick’s dental arrangements – he’d been booked in to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed that afternoon, but after an hours wrestling with pliers had resulted in nothing more than a sweaty Dentist and an extremely irate Guitarist, a date for the rematch has yet to be agreed.
Mick has been advised to take a firm grasp of the dentist’s dangly bits when he leans back in the chair, and remind him that “This isn’t going to hurt… is it?”

The Kameleon

This gig should rightfully have been in the Raglan Arms, our favourite muso pub in Weston, but thanks to the actions of a few arseholes who decided to break into the place, have a party and burn it down, all bets and indeed gigs were off, until the Kameleon , a newish music venue in Weston, took over the Raglan’s roster, fairplay to them. The Kameleon was described to us as a place that was ‘finding its feet as a music venue’, and that would be a diplomatic way of describing it – it’s basically a Wetherspoons style pub full of blokes in white T shirts with shaved heads trying to cop off with women. Suffice to say, it wasn’t really our Target Demographic.
Still, it sounded nice where we were, and the few refugees from the Raglan who turned up made it worth our while – not forgetting the couple who came down from Birmingham, bless ‘em!

…and yes, I know the shorts make me look like Lofty in ‘It Ain’t ‘alf  Hot, Mum…’
It won’t happen again...

The Fleece, the George & Lytchett Matravers

Busy couple of weeks for the band, kicking off Friday before last at the Fleece in Bristol, supporting The Men They Couldn't Hang (again). They must think we're stalking them, but we're really not, although we do seem to go down well with their audience - an excellent gig, even if we only got half an hour, and great to catch up with some old friends at the same time!
Rich the engineer took a recording off the desk of this gig, which I'll link to somewhere when it's been mastered, it didn't sound too bad in raw form.
Apologies to young Dominic Malin, a young and rather nervous singer/guitarist who went on before us, and wasn't quite sure what to do with the DI lead from his guitar when he'd finished: "Err... should I just unplug my guitar?"
"No! You must stay there all night!" called out our Mick, to a suddenly silent room... poor kid looked briefly terrified!
No-one took any photos, as far as I know, so here's one of the Allnight Chemists playing the Fleece in about 1987. My haircut's the same, anyway...

Friday last saw us return to The George in Bradford on Avon, where landlord Darren had a mouthwatering array of local real ales and ciders ready for us... many were sampled, and all found favour, and a pretty good crowd in the place too, always a pleasure to do this one.
The next night, with me feeling unaccountably jaded, we headed off to Lytchett Matravers in Dorset, which as well as a name that sounds like an Edwardian skin complaint, boasts a very large and impressive village hall which was hosting a beer festival... it had evidently been going on for some time, as an ambulance had just arrived to pick up a comatose body from the adjoining playing fields.
As we chatted with the organiser, a genial punk geezer who used to run a pub we played at in Poole a while ago, a purple-faced gent with a glazed expression staggered up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered conspiratorially "I 'aven't 'ad a piss yet!". I didn't have the heart to tell him that actually, yes he had...
Lovely big stage in this place, huge lighting rig as well, but the acoustics were shocking. In between sets a DJ played his eighties record collection ('Eye of the Tiger', anyone?) and cheerfully burbled away completely incomprehensibly in the way that only DJs can.
While we were playing, an elderly gent came and asked us if we would play "a waltz, or a quickstep?" and was quite disappointed when I explained that we were unlikely to. He made the best of a bad job though - over the next hour he must have dragged every woman under 40 in the place around the floor with him, the cunning old fox...
A good night,especially the Exmoor Beast!
(That's a beer, not the dancing gent...)

Glastonbury 1995!

Finally rescued & converted from the moldering VHS on top of the wardrobe, here's some video of the Brew Band playing a little stage at Glasto back in 1995!
It was shot by a lovely couple whose names now escape me, and posted to us later in the year.
There's bits from two separate gigs here, we didn't rush off and change halfway through... I can only excuse the terrible shades I'm wearing in the first bit by saying that I had a monumental hangover, I think I only crawled out of bed 10 minutes before we went on.
Right at the end of 'Wishing we were Younger' I managed to break my bottom E string, not an easy thing to do, and to this day I can remember the feeling of horror... good job I only had an instrumental to struggle though after that (and 'struggle' is definitely the right word)

Farmfest 2011

When I started going to festivals, they didn't have their own Twitterfeed (I know, right? OMG!), and they were regarded as the preserve of long-haired weirdos in funny hats in pursuit of free love & illicit chemical stimulation, which was fair enough, because they were.

Here I am in 1981, having given up on the free love, and settled for a couple of litres of vodka & orange by the banks of the Thames. It's an attitude which has served me well ever since.

On the evidence of Farmfest 2011, a lovely little 3000 capacity festival in the wilds of Somerset, nothing much has changed, apart from the constant social media input & the mobile phones (last time I went to Glastonbury as a punter, I had to meet up with my mates by arranging for one of them to ring me from a call-box on my new-fangled pager to tell me where they were...) Certainly the toilets haven't improved, but apart from that minor gripe, a really well put together event - the main stage headliners Dodgy finished a little while before we went on in one of the two marquees, so we got a nice big audience for our midnight set, and it was a storming gig - encores, singing along, the lot. Haven't enjoyed a gig as much as this one for ages - well done to all the organisers, and the highly effective soundcrew, who sorted us out in 5 minutes flat - we all crawled off to bed very happy indeed!
The next morning though, the Black Rat and even more threateningly named Bull Beggar cider had left it's mark on us to a certain extent, but had taken a terrible toll on the young lads & lasses crawling out of their collapsing tents, shrivelling in the sun like a coven of vampires... in funny hats.

Cheers to Ollie for the picture above, lots of splendid hats to be found here.