The King Arthur, Glastonbury

Yes, the very same pub in which King Arthur burned the cakes he was baking for Joseph of Arimathea. Or something.
...well, this pub was a new one on me, and They said that space was at a premium; suffice to say, if we'd been any closer together last night we would now all be legally betrothed in at least 47 states, and up on charges in four of them.
Despite spatial limitations so severe that Nick had to remove his hi-hat just to reach the bar (yup, every bit as painful as it sounds), we managed to get through the whole first set without serious injury.
The second set saw the appearance of the Pub Nutter.
Now, this particular beast appears in Many Forms, and moves in Mysterious Ways, but some things are always predictable:

He (and it always is a He) works alone - I wonder why?
He sports an unusual haircut (in this instance no hair at all)
He dances like a Kangaroo on Acid.
He will not go away. Ever.This one, bless him, had a twist! Just when you thought you had the Measure of the Man, he vanishes into the car park & reappears with a length of UPVC drainpipe, incorporating several elbow joints. With these unlikely Dark Materials he manages to fashion a range of obscenely contorted shapes, several of which slide dangerously into regions of non-Euclidean Geometry hitherto merely hinted at in the Forbidden Necronomicon of the Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred...

Several punters disappeared into realms of unnameable nightmare without even waiting for last orders, but the survivors that retained their sanity pronounced it "a bloody good night out", and who are we to argue?

The Fishes, Highworth, & Stroud Fringe Festival

Another busy weekend for BITL, 2 gigs on the trot...

The Fishes in Highworth was a return visit - last time the place was pretty much dead, although the landlord apparently heard glowing reports. Things didn't look promising as we set up; no-one in the place apart from a dodgy drunk of the type that veers unpredictably between maudlin self-pity & extreme violence...
"'Ere, Lemmy!" he'd occasionally slur, one eye pointing vaguely in my direction. "Lemmy, yeah..?"
How precisely am I supposed to respond to that? Do I point out that I am not in fact Lemmy, and risk him flying into an uncontrollable rage? Or should I gargle with gravel and start wearing a cowboy hat? In the event I settled for pointedly ignoring him, whilst radiating quiet menace (which probably came across more as mild annoyance).
Thankfully our soundcheck proved too much for the cretin, and he staggered off into the night.
Things started fairly quietly, but were soon livened up by a large contingent of US servicemen from the local airbase, evidently intent on having a good time by means of splashing a lot of beer about & dancing with any women who came within range - much whoopin' and hollerin' ensued, and we were generally quite relieved to escape with our lives...

The Stroud Fringe was a new one for us, and turned out to be a nice little do in the Cornhill market in the middle of Stroud - loads of punters there, though a little difficult to actually see them through the 3rd degree burn-inducing lighting rig... onstage sound was awful, with Chris unable to hear what he was singing, and no-one being able to hear the drumkit, but it must have sounded OK out front judging from the applause.
My commiserations to the hapless stagehand who offered to carry my bass rig down the steps when we finished - he missed a step & it fell on him; as anyone who's ever tried to pick up my bass rig on their own knows, this could well have been fatal. Luckily he was relatively unscathed & went off to count his blessings (and possibly his ribs).
There may, or more likely may not, be some pictures of this gig to come - Ruth tried to get a business card from the photographer, but it seems he was in a state of altered consciousness, so they might all be close-ups of Ruth's toenail anyway...
http://www.stroudfringe.co.uk/

Pictures of Gavin

Courtesy of Steve, here's a few pics of my little bruv over there in the Ardeche, and his lovely bus. I'm not jealous though, oh no, not at all...
There's more on Flickr, the link's over there -->

The King William, Glastonbury & the Wheatsheaf, Thornbury

No, it's not one of the missiles that got through the chickenwire last weekend, it's a natural cast of the footprint of a theropod dinosaur, possibly Iguanadon, on the beach at Brook, IOW. It's missing the central toe, so I drew it in the sand. Must have been a big bugger, 'cos the next one's 5 metres away...
More holiday pics at: http://www.byphotos.com/album/1334810

Anyways, what about those gigs? About the Glastonbury one, the least said the better - what with holidays etc. we haven't got together for a few weeks now, and it certainly showed... at one point, we were playing two different songs at the same time. Still, the punters loved it - must be something in the water. Or possibly the beer.
A very strange woman wanted to take a picture of Nige & me with a woolly cardigan. No, I don't know either... I suspect there's a 'specialist' cardigan website somewhere, which now features a snap of us holding said garment & looking baffled - whatever floats your boat.

The Wheatsheaf in Thornbury was a new one for us, and our first e-gig, sorted out entirely on the net on the strength of our website. Didn't look too promising when we arrived, as we were playing in a lean-to out in the garden, but as it turned out we got the best sound I can remember for years, some damn good IPA and a lively crowd as well.
Looking forward to a return match there, especially as the Landlord's missus is related to the near-godlike Dave Pegg of Fairport, a man whose bass-playing left me open mouthed with envy last time I saw him. We were supporting them at the Cheese & Grain in Frome a few years back, and after our set he came and shook my hand and said "Nice amp, mate!"
I didn't wash my hand for 2 weeks.

Newt Beer Festival, Somerset

YeeeHarr! Eight thousand sweaty, swivel-eyed drunks in a huge marquee, a proper-job stage at one end, and a dazzling array of over a hundred different beers ranging from the sublime (Coopers WPA, 3.5%) to the ridiculous (Old Freddy Walker, 7.3% - old Freddy fall over, more like) at the other.
My idea of heaven, and quite a few other peoples by the look of it. We were meant to take the stage at 6 p.m., but swapped our slot with the next band. This worked out rather well, as I then had time for more beer (Village Idiot, 4.1%)
Suitably refreshed, we played from 7 - 8 and went down a storm, if I say so myself. It's always a good sign if an audience who doesn't know your songs bellows along with the choruses! Like the idiots we are, we forgot to bring some CDs to put on the merchandising tent, but hopefully we'll sell a few after via the website (http://www.billyinthelowground.com/ since you ask!), as I reminded everyone what our name was after practically every song...
By the time we'd finished, the place was a heaving mass of horrendously inebriatoxified humanity, which it took me a good quarter of a hour to fight my way through for more beer (Son of a Bitch, 6.0%)
Ruth & Chris poured me out of the van later that evening, taking care not to disturb my nice foamy head...

(pic by Mike Lang, www.imagery.org.uk)

Mr Wolfs, Bristol

First time for us on Saturday at this venue in Bristol city centre, and hopefully we'll be back, 'cause it was great fun, and reminded us why exactly it is that we do this in the first place - a very helpful stage manager, decent P.A., free beers & food and a big, lively crowd of well-lubricated punters - what more do you need? (Chris poked at his veggie noodles suspiciously for a while, but was unable to eat them as they contained vegetables, and indeed noodles, neither of which are compatible with his entirely meat-based diet)
Bit of a problem in the soundcheck, as my bass amp decided to go on strike for the night - luckily the P.A. was big enough to handle it though. I'm now waiting to hear what the prognosis is on my poor stricken Laney...
Support was provided by Shaico, an acoustic 4 piece with a John Martyn-ish feel to them; incidentally it said in the venue's website that we look like ZZ Top, which upset Ruth a little as she shaved her beard off ages ago.
A mainly young crowd (well, everyone looks young to us now) started to filter in from 10ish onwards, and by the time we'd done a few songs the place was hot, sweaty, rammed & jumping, which is always gratifying, apart from getting a microphone in the teeth at one point. When we'd finished a DJ took over, and the merrily bouncing crowd promptly spilled onto the stage, necessitating a speedy pack-up & withdrawal on hands and knees - quite tricky in the dark with people treading on you. Ah, the glamour of Rock 'n' Roll...

Father's Day - Punk's Not Dead!

Yes! A set of Sex Pistols fridge magnets!
Not only will they brighten up the fridge, but they're educational too - just watch your kids' vocabulary expand.
I was dead chuffed with these...
Hello, what's that noise? Is it the manic cackling of Malcolm McClaren as he stuffs more cash into his coffers, or is it the whirring, high-speed rotation of the corpse of Sid Vicious..?