Dursley Arms, Trowbridge

"Someone's pulled out at the last minute, and the guvn'r wants to know if we can step in" said Chris on the phone last Thursday.
"Tell Mr Eavis we'll be there! Is it the Pyramid Stage or the other one?"
"It's the Dursley Arms in Trowbridge."
"Oh."
Well, a gig's a gig... as it turned out, a jolly fine one too - lots of room to play with and a small but enthusiastic bunch of locals who actually listened, and by all accounts loved it; one chap came up afterwards and told me "That was the best bass I've ever heard in here!" What a nice man - either that or he doesn't get out much.
Nick also made an impression - another gent asked him if he was married; apparently "a friend asked me to ask you." Yes mate, a friend - of course it was...
Even Ruth was looking revived by the end of the night - no mean feat, as she was by her own account "Perrified"- a condition brought about by excessive consumption of pear cider the night before. Apparently it had 'ectoplasm' in it, which probably didn't help.
And at the end of the night, we didn't even get our boots muddy - who needs Glastonbury anyway?

Scallys in Weston - and a new CD!

Ahh... the fresh sea air, the extra-cold Guinness and the unmistakeable whiff of skunk as we hump the gear through the front door - I love this place!

Not a bad turnout either, considering the landlord and most of the regulars were off on a bike run for the weekend (some people will go to any lengths to avoid us, apparently) - nice to see some familiar faces, and even better we had some lovely new CDs to sell them! Yes, the many gruelling hours of labour in the studio have finally ended, and we've got a brand new bouncing baby album to play with. It's called "An arrangement with myself", and we're rather pleased with it. I'm currently uploading the whole thing to last.fm (see posts below), so give it a listen and let us have some feedback.

Chippenham Folk Festival

OK, a bit cheeky that, as we were apparently 'under the umbrella' of the Chippenham Festival rather than actually 'on the bill', as it were...
Still, an umbrella would have been bloody useful on the night, as we transferred our Precious & Unreplaceable Vintage Equipment (that's what we tell the insurance company, anyway) from the van into the venue; the Gladstone Arms in sunny Chippenham.
The original plan here was to play in a marquee in the back of the pub, but it was immediately apparent that Jacques Cousteau & his Swinging Squid would have had trouble setting their gear up in the Biblical Flood that the carpark had become, so we got busy in the back room instead.
Turned out nice in the end, though - we triumphed against adversity and got a nice big pubful of punters jumping around like... er, like a large contingent of drunks, really. Job done.
Special mention must go to the trio of luvverly young Laydeez at the front - we couldn't have done it without you (well, we could, but it wouldn't have been so much fun).
All in all, best gig we've played in ages, and no small thanks to the landlord, a lovely fella who plied us with drink.
There's a hint to other landlords there...
;-)