Catch-up time again.

Lots of gigs since July, the album is all but finished, and we've had some memorable Festival appearences, so best take things in order; the first festival date this year was the South Cotswold Beer Festival - a well organised do in a massive field full of beer-soaked punters, at least it was by the time we'd finished if not when we started... a rather early slot for us, and the enormous gap between the stage and the beertent apparently about a mile away was slow to fill, but the sound was great.
Ditto the following night at the Rattlebone Inn at Sherston, when our occasional sound engineer Hans got to play with the new PA that DFP had surprised us all with - very large and lovely! The PA, not Hans. Although Hans is large and lovely too, bless him.

August kicked off with Farmfest in Bruton on the 1st, followed by Festival on the Farm in Purton on the 2nd. The confusion this caused was considerable, and after a storm of muddled texts and emails between the 6 bandmembers, I wasn't at all sure that we'd all turn up to the right festival on the right day, but somehow we managed it.
Farmfest was as usual excellent - it has grown year on year and now occupies a big place in the national Festival calendar.The Sett Stage, ably curated (I hate that term, but it seems to have entered common parlance now) by the inimitable Ollie Hulme was a hit, although I suspect the PA might have been a little underpowered, as there was quite a lot of 'bleed' from the stages either side. A bit more separation between the stages might not go amiss next year, as it's a nice big site.

A full house at Farmfest - pic by Lou Fitch-Peyton

Festival on the Farm was an altogether lower-key affair, set on a little organic farm with a really relaxing village-fete atmosphere, and chickens running around all over the shop. Took the family to this one, and it was a good day out - here's a photo taken by son Joe, in-house photographer and roadie-in-training...

Festival on the Farm - Joe Simpson

The next week, Firsdown Festival was another small, local event, but someone in the village clearly owned their own PA and Lighting company, as the stage set-up put many much larger festivals to shame... a very well organised and friendly do - apart from us it was all covers bands though, which was a bit of a missed opportunity I thought.
A big surprise for us though was meeting the original Brew Band bassplayer Sid, who was over on holiday from New Zealand with his wife, and turned up to see us, which was brilliant - I'd never met him before, and Chris and Ruth hadn't seen him in 20 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. Sid was pleased to see that there were still one or two songs on the set that he recognised and remembered playing!

Firsfest - pic by Terri Johnson

At the other end of August came our headlining slot at Foxstock, a 4 day music festival run by Maurice Dickson, who coincidentally is the chap who's been Mastering our album - this was a big deal for us, as the Saturday night slot has previously been filled by big-name bands like Dr Feelgood and Chas 'n' Dave, and I think we acquitted ourselves rather well, certainly judging by the audience reaction. We were well chuffed, and many thanks to all involved including Antony Edwards, who took some great photos...

Johnny at Foxstock, by Antony Edwards

Ruth at Foxstock, by Antony Edwards

The following night we were in the Southgate Inn, Devizes, as part of the Devizes International Street Festival, which was a tiny and eccentric place of the sort that I would love to have as my local... and not just because the guv'nor gave us free drinks all night, either; a proper music-loving pub with an extremely enthusiastic crowd - the best pub gig I can remember playing in ages.
I enjoyed it so thoroughly in fact, that I managed to leave my jacket, wallet, doorkeys, carkeys and phone there, meaning an early return in the cold grey dawn of Sunday morning to retrieve them. Oops.

And so on to September, and the Upton Cheyney Chilli & Cider Festival, which we were very pleased to be doing again - we played the Saturday night 'Party in the Barn', and had a blast - cheers to Alex Duck for asking us back, and for the ciders! Also good to make the acquaintance of Sicknote Steve, the UK's premier Seasick Steve Tribute, and a jolly nice feller to boot.
Those punters who stayed until the Sunday afternoon were treated to the Wurzels, who in addition to their usual eye-watering fee, apparently demanded that a larger PA was hired in at great expense... I'm saying nothing...

Chilli + cider = party... pic by Lou

Later in the month another 2-gig weekend, starting with The Locomotive in Swindon, a new player on the scene trying to get established as a music venue but still somewhat hampered by the clientele, who were more the all-day drinking crowd, including the World's Smelliest Irishman who wouldn't leave Ruth alone... actually, just typing that makes me think I can still smell him...
The makings of a good venue - I hope it succeeds, as Swindon has a dearth of decent places to play for a town of its size - good luck to the organisers, who are clearly putting a lot of work in.

The next night we played the OktoberWest Beer Festival in Yattendon, Berkshire - a new one, run by the local brewery, who had pulled out all the stops with a lovely old tithe barn and some great beers.
A rather posh crowd, with many pairs of red trousers in evidence, plus lots of rugby shirts with the collars turned up, and some truly appalling dancefloor moves, which seems to be a speciality of the upper classes for some reason.

A return after a couple of years to the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon at the end of September was enjoyable, though a bit quiet by recent standards - apparently there was some sort of rugby World Cup on, or something.

Thunderbolt - pic by Rhys Postians

October saw us headlining a benefit gig at The Thunderbolt in Bristol, in aid of medical aid to Greece and the Calais Refugee Crisis appeal. The support band were a young outfit from Cardiff called Commander Boom, and very good they were too - I don't know how much money we raised, but everyone seemed to have a good time, ourselves included. Nice venue the Thunderbolt.
Commander Boom had a photographer mate with them who very kindly took some very nice ones of us as well - thanks, Rhys Postians!

And that about brings us up to date, apart from a private party we played the following night at the Holford Arms, Knockdown - this nearly didn't happen at all, as when we got there the place had been hit with a powercut, but eventually it was sorted out and it was a pretty good night in the end.

No more gigs in the diary at time of writing, and we're still finalising the artwork and design of the new album, but hopefully that'll be ready in time for Christmas (I hope so, there's a few earmarked for Christmas prezzies that otherwise I'll have to buy!) Watch this space...

Bit of a pattern emerging, isn't there?

OK, I know, even by my woeful standards, 6 months is a long gap between posts, but I think I've got a pretty good set of excuses:

(1) Our recent line-up changes have necessitated a lengthy period of introspective reflection, practise and self-improvement, mostly at an exclusive Retreat in the Maldives.
(2) Frankly, I couldn't be arsed.
(3) Errr...
(4) That's it.

Well, that's the ritual excuses out of the way...

This should be pretty short and sweet frankly, as there's several gigs I can't remember a thing about - the Village Inn in March, for instance, I know we were there, but damned if I can recall one single thing about it. I could make something up, but then I'd be compromising my Journalistic Integrity, and you wouldn't want to be complicit in that, now, would you?

After that one we did the opening night of Charlie's Bar in Westbury - an unpromising start loading in all our gear over the heads of a small herd of apparently completely unsupervised toddlers, but a great little sweaty gig in the end - some good photos by Andrew Bert Greaves as well...

April saw a return to the wonderful Beeses Tea Gardens in Bristol - an unlikely sounding venue to anyone outside of Bristol, but a legend to anyone within, and it didn't disappoint. We headlined their Beer Festival a couple of years ago, and we'd been itching to get back there ever since - a lovely place to play, run by people who know their music and are happy to put up with a bunch of whinging musicians and still keep a smile on their faces - good luck in your future endeavours, Ma Beese & Co., we'll miss you!

We finally took the plunge and went into the studio to do some recording in May, at the splendidly 1970's-feeling Alma Vale Studio - the intention being to 'do it properly this time' and record a full 10 or 12-track album.
We started on the first day with recording the drums and bass guitar live, and it worked so well, we'd recorded 14 tracks before we'd quite realised what we'd done. so we decided to stop there and let the other guys do some work.
As we go to press it's in the Mixing stage - a few more stirs, and it'll be ready...

 We were supposed to play the Bradford on Avon Beer Festival in May, and we turned up and soundchecked as per,but unfortunately one of DFP's mares was having a difficult delivery, which obviously he had to stick around for to sort out, so we had to pull out at the last minute.
(You can insert your own 'Stud Farm Related Coitus Interruptus' gag here, I'm not doing all of the work for you...)
What with all the recording we've been doing recently, it's a wonder we've managed to find time to play live at all, but we managed to drag ourselves onstage - protesting all the while, and covered in capes like James Brown...(could've done with capes as well, it was bloody freezing...) at the Holford Arms in Knockdown, playing outside in a frankly rather under-lit marquee, to an audience of of around 200 tree surgeons.
I have no idea why there were that many tree surgeons in one place, but they seemed to enjoy it, which is just as well - never a good idea to antagonise a man with a chainsaw, in my experience.

I've always maintained that we do our best work in the dark...

And then there were six!

the rather splendid poster from the first Star gig...

Oh dear, let this slide a bit haven't I?
Not a huge amount of gigs since the last entry though, as we were frantically trying to organise a new lead guitarist after the unexpected departure of Simon.

A new venue for us at the end of October was The Star in Fishponds - a quick Google of the place showed what looked like a shut-down pub with a load of terrible reviews, but in actual fact it's been recently taken over by the same team that run the Village Inn in Nailsworth, and they'd really gone to town on the place, gutting it completely and turning it into a real asset to the area (and god knows, Fishponds needs a decent pub).

We did this gig as a 4-piece, but by the time we returned to the pub a mere few weeks later in December, we'd not only recruited a new lead guitarist, Rob Fawcett, but also a banjoplayer, Johnny Gould, so for possibly the first time in our history we played with 2 new members - luckily both chaps are so quick on the uptake and generally talented that we sailed through it, which gave us lots of confidence for the coming year. The sound of the band has been beefed-up considerably, and we're all rather excited about the possibilities...

Next gig was at one of my favourite Bristol venues, Mr Wolfs, with support from the Bonfire Radicals - a brilliant alt/Folk band who'd come all the way down from Birmingham for this Tuesday night gig, and with a variety of debilitating lurgeys between them, as well - hope they decide it was worth the journey, as I'd very much like to see them down this way again.

Final gig of the year at the end of December was at The Oxford, Totterdown - another favourite Bristol haunt, and a great way to finish 2014...
Onwards and upwards!