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.

Woolley Festival 13

To Bradford on Avon last Friday, for the 13th Woolley Festival, a cracking little do organised by Darren, the landlord of the George on Woolley Street.

We last played it last a couple of years back when the whole thing was crammed into the street in front of the pub, which was pretty hard work to be honest, especially trying to manhandle the gear through a sea of punters to get to the tiny stage, only to find that the Pink Floyd tribute act that were going on last had decided to set all their gear up during your setup time, and not actually left any room on the stage for you... This is the sort of thing that upsets normally mild-mannered musicians, and Nige, our then Mandolin player, turned a worrying shade of puce before offering to fight pretty much everyone within range...

No such problems this time though, as the whole shebang had been relocated to a nice big field down the road, with everything the discerning festivalgoer would want to hand. Except for the Unicorn Petting Zoo... we always request one on our rider, and never get one, I can't understand it.
The band on before us were a disconcertingly young trio called the Operation, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear more of them, they were extremely good and very, well... young. When they came off backstage after their set we all looked like their Mums & Dads come to collect them...
Our set went down pretty darn well, especially as there were a couple of brand new songs in there we'd never tried out before, and a good time was had by all.

Was hoping for a few photos to materialise, but none so far... well done to Darren & his team for organising such a great event, and here's hoping we'll be around for number 14!

Back to the Raglan Arms!

Saturday night at the Raglan Arms, Weston Super Mare, and further proof that we do our best work in the dark! ;-)
We weren't due back here till October, but since they had a cancellation, and our gig diary had a big pub-shaped hole in it, we thought why not?
Looked a bit Marie-Celestial up till about 9 o'clock, with band outnumbering punters by a ratio of 2:1, which didn't bode well, but sure enough the place filled rapidly then. Weston people obviously don't like to come out too early! Once again, a nice warm sound in this friendly old pub, probably helped by all the wood, plus it's been dry of late, so all our speakers have finally dried out.
A great night, and many thanks to everyone who turned up at such short notice and supported us.
I was somewhat baffled by the geezer who kept calling out "Fire Brigade", until I remembered that it's an old Roy Wood song... what was he trying to say, I wonder? Well, here you go mate, this is the closest you'll get to us doing it!

The Men They Couldn't Hang, and Lechlade Festival

After a prolonged gig drought, two come along at once, or nearly so - both in the same part of the world too, the first being a Friday night support slot with The Men They Couldn't Hang at the 12Bar in Swindon. We did this about a year ago on St Patrick's night, and it's a lovely little venue, with a decent stage & PA and friendly soundcrew. Good pint of Doom Bar, too!
Everything ran like clockwork this time around, and our set went down rather well, I'd say - lots of people saying nice things afterwards, anyway. We'll be back at this place later in the year, I think...

On Saturday, with our ears still ringing, and heads still thumping from the Doom Bar (OK, just mine, then), it was time to head 20 miles North of Swindon to the first Lechlade Festival, set in the Cotswolds Water Park, next to the Thames. Lovely little site, Nice big beer tent, like to see that... (Old Lech at £3 a pint?! At a festival? Oooh yes, I'll 'ave some of that!) A tad wet & windy, unfortunately, with nearly fatal consequences: in a scene reminiscent of The Omen (if you don't know what I'm on about, check the link below), a freakishly strong wind blew up, toppling a scaffold tower draped with banners by the side of the stage, and as the tower fell onto a car parked next to it in the backstage area, a 3 foot-long steel roadpin which had presumably been left on top of it neatly impaled Ruth's metal case, thankfully missing any vital tuners, leads, effects pedals, or indeed fiddle players, which would have put a distinct dampener on proceedings (I could swear I heard a choir reaching a menacing crescendo too, but in retrospect that may have been an aftereffect of the Doom Bar).
Despite the best efforts of the Evil One/scaffold company, our late afternoon set went down very well, in fact when I went back later that night, it was apparent that we'd had the largest audience of the day - headliners Incubus Succubus were playing to about 50 people, which was a shame as they were pretty darn good. The lot before them though, a Glam covers band called Same Old Faeces Faces were... well, you can guess.