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Click here for the latest entry.
Entries for 2025 are in the blog archive.
Don't worry if you missed them, it was all rubbish.
January 1st:
Our New year's eve gig last night was pretty good. Two spots - the last finishing at 11pm. We had a bit of a discussion about an offer that had come to us to do a jam night at a venue in Leigh. They wanted us on Sundays doing 9pm up til midnight, which was no good to us. I said to them that we didn't really fancy hosting a midweek jam night. The band isn't available at all during February, so there is no rush to find anywhere else to do it. I'm a bit worn out with doing jam nights. They are a lot of hard work for not a lot of money. I was home just before midnight and able to help deal with two barking mutts, driven up the wall by the horrendous barrage of fireworks.Awake before 9am this morning, so up and into the coffee. I sent Paul (our guitarist) a message, saying I hope he's feeling ok. He was really struggling with some severe flu symptoms last night and he really didn't look well at all. I knew he had family things lined up today and that he would naturally feel duty bound to be there. I got a message back from him much later on, saying that he had been in bed for most of the day. I hope he's better soon.
January 2nd:
In the evening it was the final night at what was our jam night venue, Tilwalds in Tyldesley. I popped down for a quick hello and a drink. I would have stayed longer if any of the jam night crowd had been there.
January 3rd:
On driving duties for a relative, a trip for some radiotherapy treatment at the Christie Centre in Salford. I will be pitching in to do a few of these runs, along with other family members. It's really weird going back there 8 years later. It's not changed at all and there are identical people in the waiting room to when I had my own treatment. There's a general air of calm, though I'm sure that most of the people undergoing the treatment are probably not that calm, but everybody behaves. One Asian gentleman who was there, accompanying his wife, didn't know how to not look like he's really staring intensely at people. It was quite un-nerving to have such persistent eye contact with him.
A bit of book work in the afternoon. I had been passed some 1975 demo recordings by the band our book is about and they are radically different to what has actually been released. We are being sent some more of these recordings by an old friend of the band and they do constitute an interesting late addition to part two of the book. They have never been circulated. I also re-jigged part of the cover artwork. We have less than a month to go before we publish and I can't resist the temptation of doing a slight bit of tinkering with the artwork. It looks really good.
Evening TV: Runaway on Netflix, The Traitors.
January 4th:
A bit of recording in my home studio in the early afternoon. The song is one of my own that dates back to the mid 1980's and was about my late first wife Julie and her very early morning start to travel to her job. It's a reasonable enough version, which I started work on a while ago. I had a backing track down, so I re-did all the vocals about three times to get them to the point where I was happy enough with them before getting on with a final mix. There are a few more partly completed tracks to go at. I'm thinking of doing a CD of my own work to release later in the year. I don't care if it actually sells or not. I'll just get a hundred or so copies manufactured and send them to people.
Jaunary 8th:
Up early and got my wife to Wythenshawe Hospital for 9am for her procedure. I was able to get her home late in the afternoon.
January 9th:
Some hospital driving duties again.
January 10th:
I haven't felt like writing very much this last week or so. It's been a stressful time, with my wife having a heart procedure, which was VERY concerning, not to mention a couple of sick pets. The band lruched back into action tonight, which was a little bright spot amongst all of the murk that's our lives at the moment. The parking, load-in and set-up were all quite stressful, which is unusual for that venue. We were a bit loose in the first half, but we were properly warmed up by the time of the second half and that was really enjoyable. We filmed the gig and there are some clips up on YouTube.
January 12th:
Some hospital driving duties again.
January 15th:
I had a long, rambling message last week from someone called Will who had been looking at our Facebook page and our website, asking me for advice on how to get gigs for his band. I sent him a few quick paragraphs of what I thought was decent advice back.
He seems quite young and may not have much idea about how these things work. I don't think his band have any sort of web presence. What they need to do is get organised to go out to some venues and talk to them. They need to get some video together. They need a set list and something to show to venues to get them to take a punt on them.
There's been a string of messages since then and he was basically trying to get ME to sell his band to venues. Sadly, I don't have the time to manage someone else's band for nothing. I also have no great desire to become the next Colonel Tom Parker. My polite response excusing myself from working for them did not go down well. He got rather snotty about it all and blocked me. So he's probably now bugging someone else. I have missed out on that opportunity to make zillions and watch my proteges on Top Of The Pops.... oh wait... Good luck to Will and his band. He never actually managed to tell me what they were called. He seemed to be more focused on which venues paid what amount than getting his info out there.
I'm busy enough chasing up venues for my own band to play at, without the hassle of running another band. It's sometimes really hard work. I have historically always been the one who has ended up, doing the diary, creating Facebook events, building a website and doing all of the admin, messaging and contacting venues with details of my own band and pointing them to our page and our website which has all of our videos on it, a list of the songs we do, our gig dates and available dates and some photos and videos of us playing those songs live. I've been on web design courses and photoshop courses. I've also had to learn how to be quite a bit of an accountant and have won some difficult battles with Excel spreadsheets.
The people who run venues have other things to do than wade through messages from people looking for work with them, so you sometimes have to nag them a bit. Persistence and patience and politeness when you send that third message pays off. If you're reading this and you're running one of the venues that we play at, it means you've read my messages and been good to us. Thanks so much for taking us on and having us play for you. It's not easy running a venue these days.
In the evening I went for a drive out to pick up a quite powerful 400w floor monitor speaker so I can hear my own vocals better at gigs.
January 16th:
Last minute revisions to the new book. We are on 223 pages.
January 17th:
Today would have been my late wife Julie's 63rd birthday. She only made it to 24.
In the evening we played at the Hindley Arms and had quite a good gig. It wasn't too busy for the first half, though those who were there were into it. The second half was really good.
We had a chat about one of the venues that we played at in December. We had filmed the show and I was listening back to the audio of it. The crowd were really really into it and enjoying the gig, though after we had finished playing, the Concert Sec grumbled ay us because a couple of people left before the end.
January 24th:
Another new release project suddenly on the go. I got word that artwork was needed a couple of days back, so the sleeve and disc label are now completed. I got the master copy of the music sent to me yesterday, so I will be getting on with arranging pressings on Monday.
Our tenth anniversary gig in the evening was somewhat disrupted by our drummer's transport breaking down on the M61 on the way there. Paul was only a short distance from home when we got word, so he nipped home and collected an electro-acoustic guitar. We did what we did last time we had drummer trouble - and played as a duo. It went down really well.
January 25th:
We played an early evening show (supposedly 6-8pm, but the football ran a little late) in Padiham - our first time at the venue, though I think I've played there before, years ago. We suffered from the run-up to payday, but played to a decent-sized receptive crowd (with our drummer) and have been re-booked twice later in the year, As we finished early, I managed to fill up the car on the way home and had some pizza when I landed at home. Better than getting home after 1am.
January 26th:
Up at a reasonable time. My wife isn't well - achey and sore all over and she spent most of the day in bed, or asleep on the sofa. I did some book work and ordered the CD singles that I needed to deal with. The release should be in a fortnight or so.
January 27th:
The Three's next release might be out on vinyl too. A vinyl 45 is very attractive, but awfully expensive to do.
We did our last album through Elastic Stage and that seems like a plan for the next one too.
January 28th:
An afternoon out in Manchester with two friends turned a bit weird when I bought one friend's round for him, in return for a favour he had done for us.The other friend got all bent-out-of-shape about it all. I'm re-thinking whether I continue this friendship after all of these years, as it was plain embarrassing to have my other friend subjected to this tirade and I'm not going to do it again.
In other news, the garden fence between us and next door has now been replaced at our expense. I now don't have to look at their mess of a 'back garden' through collapsed panels.
February's blog will be in the blog archive for those of you with the folder password.
January 30th:
The band played at the Thomas Egerton on the outskirts of Bolton. A nice gig which we had some friends attend. A good crowd who got involved.
January 31st:
The band played our last gig of the month at The Musketeer in Leigh. It's always a littlebit nerve-wracking playing there, as the place is usually empty early on, until the crowd usually turns up - just in time for the band starting. You do wonder if people are going to come. But they always do. We really enjoyed the gig itself and played some requests and snippets to keep them engaged. We played really well and went down great with them. Back later in the year. Now for a bit of a welcome rest from playing shows until March.
February 4th:
Some final editing for Part Two of the Noize book which covers 1977 to date. It's now been checked and uploaded for paperback and hardback and a paperback edition for Australia, who require a different print standard. Publication has now been put back to the 14th of February, partly due to the constraints of Amazon's publishing machinery.
This fits in with other projects and isn't the worst thing that could have happened.
February 5th:
My PSA weighs in at 0.06 this morning. Suitably low, but slightly up on what it was last time. I will have to keep an eye on that.
February 12th:
I've been really busy. I compiled a nine track album and have released it on LP and CD (with two bonus tracks) via Elasticstage.
THE NOIZE part two has come out. More book work for our April book.
There will be another announcement tomorrow.
February 13th:
We have released a CD single for Slade's Jim Lea: Nostalgia / All I Want Is You.
February 14th:
Early sales for the Jim CD and the Slade book are quite encouraging. My album has done a little, but I haven't really been pushing it at all. I have no particular ambitions for it and just wanted a copy for myself. If anyone else wants it, they can have it.
February 17th:
We've sold a lot of the Jim Lea CD's and The Noize Part Two is doing well.
The unsold CD's of The Three's album are going back to Graham, as he paid for them and he wants them back. Fair enough. The album has done what it's going to do (not very much at all, as we could never get the whole band to agree to play any of the songs from it) anyway. I have vague plans to reissue it in a new sleeve on Noize Books And Recordings in a while with some bonus tracks - demos and live recordings, so that new version can be ignored too.
February 26th:
Since I posted last, there has been a little bit of activity around band bookings. I have had to move three dates because of band holiday dates changing and the fact that Del Amitri have just announced a show in Manchester. The 'holiday dates' gigs have both been rescheduled for January next year and the November date will be rearranged shortly. At least we were able to give the venues several months notice, so they were not too bothered about the changes.
We were offfered a support slot in March for the Bay City Rollers at a venue in Blackpool, but we were already booked out. I do worry about the band being a bit rusty when we do go out again. I will do a little rehearsal along to a live recording to get back into the songs, as I haven't been thinking much about band stuff at all these last weeks. I'm sure we won't play too badly though. The books are doing well and the Jim Lea CD single is not far from sold out.
March 8th:
The band have lurched back into semi-geriatric rock and roll action after a 5 week paternity break and we were all raring to go. I did drop in a couple of 'interesting jazz notes' and there will therefore be a disciplinary meeting next week.
March 11th:
I saw two studio recordings that I played bass on (with a band that I was joining last year - Shabby Tiger) posted on the internet. The group has not rehearsed at all since last year, due to the singer having some issues and also the group's original drummer having some very serious health issues as well. It has all been very quiet. I'm glad to see that the songs are out there at last. I contacted Toni - Shabby Tiger's keyboard player to see what's happening.
March 12th:
Toni came back to me with extremely shocking and sad news about Paddy O'Hare, the group's singer, who was found dead yesterday. Just bewildering.
Here are the two songs that I played bass on.
March 20:
The Inn On The Wharf, Burnley. I was tired out and not really very much in the mood for this. The crowd were not too great at all until we were finishing.
March 21st:
The Hulton Arms, Bolton. I partly put the low attendance down to the shitty AI image that had nothing to do with us which they advertised our gig with. We were far more in the mood for this one and we played a lot better.
March 27th:
Paddy's funeral in Oldham today. I did the RC service (standing room only) but didn't carry on to the wake. I just got in the car and came home.
Discussions in the band for new songs to rehearse.
March 31st:
We rehearsed for a few hours on Sunday and got 4 or 5 new songs giggable.
April 11th:
What's new since I last posted?
The band played a gig in Tyldesley, for the first time since the jam night ended, at the beginning of the month and to be honest, the turnout was a bit of a joke. There were a fair number of people in the pub, but due to the layout, we couldn't see them all. We got two return bookings there as the people who were there raved about us. One is a bank holiday weekend thing, so that will be rammed. We threw in a few new songs. I am having REAL problems with the vocals on Ballroom Blitz. The Sweet slowed the tape down when they recorded it. Our guitarist Paul - fortunately - does the high stuff on it, otherwise we couldn't even look at that song.
We've had the wind taken out of our sails a bit because we lost our beloved cat Smudge after 14 years (she would have been 15 in July).
On the evening of the 11th, we played in Leigh and it was a very good gig. The band is really gelling.
April 16th:
Up at a sensible time. A few things to do today. I started off with a quick phone call to an eaterie that we visited yesterday. I left a voice message regarding a lost bracelet. We’ll see if it re-appears.
Our dog Tom is due at the Vets at 11.30am. I’m not looking forward to going back to the Vets. We had to take our 14 year-old cat Smudge after the bank holiday weekend, as she was fading out, not eating and drinking and getting to be unable to move. It was pretty sad and I went to pick up her ashes yesterday. That was harrowing.
Tom's Vet visit went well. He had a cyst on the back of his neck drained.
April 28th:
I've been neglecting this blog. Sorry. I spent a nice late afternoon and evening in Manchester with my son last week, as he was working and staying in the city centre. I didn't get any Peter Kay tickets, as their website didn't recognise a BL4 postcode. Never mind. I have heard all of his jokes before anyway. I'm selling some guitars - and coming across disappearing Ebay accounts and people who just make excuses. The band had a weekend off (this weekend just gone). Next weekend is three on the trot which should tighten us up. a bit.
May 5th:
The last weekend just gone was the three-on-the-trot that I had been so looking forward to. I had put a new setlist together to reflect what we are doing onstage recently a bt better and to give a few of our older songs a well-deserved rest. Our guitarist Paul has a really nice enthusiasm for mixing the set up a bit and for throwing things in off-the-cuff. A nice change fromour old guitarist who insisted on sticking to the exact set list and not throwing anything in. I think his confidence had gone, because our drummer was always pulling him up on his bad playing.
Friday saw us play at Lane Ends in Burnley. We had dancers and they were quite welcome. A band needs reaction and some audience nvolvement. I used a small plastic stool (that I have just bought) to raise my bass rig off the floor and it partly solved the problem of the room being a terrible bass-trap. My bass was still a liitle bit boomy, but not like it could have been. I dropped in the 'Alex Harvey' version of I Just Want to Make Love To You that we had spontaneously sound-checked the previous week. It went down really well.
Our Saturday gig was at the Ram's Head in Lowton. We played to a really appreciative listening crowd and we went down really well. We got a lovely message from the venue afterwards. It's a bit of an awkward cart to get all of the gear in, but I set about it with some grim determination and got it done. We threw in some crowd favourites.
Our drummer Ryan had been roped into helping out with a local jam night on Thursday. Then he was up at work for 6am on Friday. He wasn't best pleased to have been made to do the jam night (especially as our old guitarist had very rudely accused him of 'throwing his toys out of the pram' when he reminded him that he had only volunteered to help with a couple of jams when it started off), but he's a nice guy and wouldn't see them having to cancel. I'd have told him to just get lost myself.
This wouldn't have been so bad had his boss at work not insisted (during the day on Friday) on him also working on Saturday morning. Ryan was really knackered on Saturday evening as he had also had to slot in a trip to Manchester to buy some cymbals. I think he got about 4 hours sleep, as he managed to get lost on his way home. I don't know which Sat Nav he uses, but he really needs to change it. Ryan was visibly absolutely knackered after the gig and didn't help with the last of the load-out of my gear. It was pissing down. I was tired too and asked myself how much longer I want to keep doing this. Paul often has the longest drive home and loads out and gets on his way.
On Sunday we played at the Thomas Egerton near Bolton. One of our nice, comfortable gigs. We had arranged to arrive at 6.30pm to set up for an 8pm start. Ryan texted me to ask if we were using the bass bins which he carries in his truck. He then fell back asleep and was a little bit late getting to the gig. I can do without that stress and am going to keep an eye on that. We did get on stage for 8pm, though. He'd had a bit of a lie-in on Sunday morning, but at the gig he was practically dropping. I bet he slept in on the Monday.
Again, we were really pleased to have some girls dancing in front of us. it was a really good gig with lots of songs thrown in and the setlist sort of noted, but ignored. All good fun. Our version of Ballroom Blitz is getting there, slowly but surely. One of the girls was so pissed afterwards that she couldn't actually remember her home address. Her phone wasn't working so she couldn't ring her parents to ask them where she lived. I bet that would have made them proud. That was turning into a bit of a situation as it was heading for midnight and the pub wanted to close. A couple volunteered to get her safely home. God knows how they were going to manage that. The girl wasn't making any real sense.
Plans to go into Salford today have been put back until Thursday.
Chris and I haven't spoken to each other about it for a while, but I think the offfer of a professional contract to write the 'Slade - song by song' book has not really caught on with us. I didn't fancy doing it very much when we came up with the idea of doing that ourselves a couple of years ago. I made a start of work on it a while ago, but it just seems far too much like enforced hard work. I think we have pretty much done all that we are going to as regards Slade books now. I hardly ever listen to them these days and the idea of dredging up anything else just doesn't really ineterest me that much. If we get any more tracks to release, we are happy enough to do that, but I think we are done with Slade books.
I have started work on a photo book from live shows a good while ago and I do remember that project occasionally, but I need to be a lot more enthusiastic about it to get it completed. I think I will set myself a target of the end of the year to complete it, as I have a number of live shows coming up.
July 2026 A couple of people had stated that they had missed my inane mumblings and rantings. What's happened since my last blog in May? July 2026 21st: Mistake. The reaction was just what you would expect. Drums were almost packed up and put in the car. They were not at all happy. Faces went red and the air went blue. The agreed times and fee were on the bass player's phone (effectively a totally binding contract) and were shown to the bar staff and the manager was reminded of the agreement. The band landed up playing for their agreed fee and from 10pm until 11.45pm. The manager admitted that he 'should engage with the bands more'. I'm not convinced. His DJ was quite surly with our drummer at the end of the night and it nearly got rather nasty. I didn't bother to leave my band's card for the boss to check out when I left. They won't ever get us playing there. I had time to watch just a couple of songs then I really had to make my way to my next port of call. After I left, I worked out that as I was running half an hour late, making my way home via Manchester Victoria rail station now looked rather improbable, so I just got a bus back in the direction of home. I was home by 11.15pm. On Saturday, my band played at Milnrow Workmens Club. I've played there a number of times and it was a slight surprise when I landed to find that they had put a new stage in a front corner of the floor area. It had a plugged-in DJ' gear stand on it, which made the space slightly awkward, but we worked around it esily enough. A hen party was in and we mainly played for them, as they were dancing quite enthusiastically, though they went on to their next stop at half time. The rest of the crowd really enjoyed us and said some very nice things to us afterwards. It was good night and we hope to be back there next year. The band is going to be mostly playing one night per weekend next year. Our guitarist, Paul, has become a father this year and so he naturally doesn't want his entire weekend taken up with gigging. The band has to work for all of us, so I can live with that. I may do some gigs on the side occasionally with a friend's ad hoc group if needed. Sunday was a trip to the supermarket, which I repeated on Monday with an additional trip to the tip thrown in to get rid of some things. We are having our bathroom replaced and rebuilt soon, so some preparation will be required for that. This afternoon (Monday) saw me paying a visit to the Bolton Hospice to get a blood test taken, as they are an outpost of the Christie Hospital, who monitor my cancer levels for potential treatment. I have never been there before. To me, Bolton Hospice is very much like the main Christie Hospital, a place I have always avoided completely, hoping I would never ever see it. I will be pushing the 'publish' button on a new book on July 30th, so that it's available on August 1st 22nd:
I got a phone call from our bathroom installer, talking about a site visit tomorrow and a start date for the installation, which should take about a week. 27th: It's been an expensive week with our main TV dying (it didn't make it to two years) and having also just replaced my dead computer monitor. Our drummer has been down with tonsilitis since our last gig (when he started to feel really iffy). Hopefully he will be feeling better for this coming Saturday. Every loony in Reform-Land is making noise about Andy Burnham's No 10 North being located at the former Stockport South DWP building at Heron House, which I have been to a few times in its former guise. Apparently the lease was signed just prior to his election as an MP. I just call it 'planning with confidence,' yet the Reformers are seeing Reds Under The Bed and some sort of conspiracy. If Reform get in, next time, the first thing they will do is vacate the building, or just give it to Farage as his personal property, anyway. 28th: A new Mott The Hoople book ('You Are One Of Us') also came in the post today. Looking forward to reading that. I have two books on the go at present: I called in at the council tip on the way home to drop off the old monitor and TV and all of the packaging. A surly little runt had a proper go at me for using the wrong Non-Recyclable skip for some plastic. They are not marked up as being any differently to each other. How was I supposed to know? He was really aggressive about it. It was really not at all necessary. Mind you, I'd be hacked of too if I was stuck standing there at the rubbish dump for 40 hours a week, in all weathers, telling people where to put their unwanted crap. 30th: A friend called round to collect a copy of a very short run private-publish book we did recently. I do them just to have them on my own bookshelf and let a few people have them at cost price. I don't make any profit on them.That's not what it's about. There are only about 10 hardback copies existing, with restored pages and photographs. A little while ago, I started to get bombarded with a stupid number of spam emails, some quite threatening, some were just utter rubbish. I went through a quite rigourous exercise to change all of my email addresses and sign-ups / logins to a different one. It was a laborious task that took a while, but it was well worth it. I redirected all the email to my old email addresses to a new single email account inbox just for junk, so I don't have to wade through them. I logged in this evening to view it and had to laugh that Best Meds4U sometimes send me an email a minute and the plonkers who would like me to buy $9000 worth of crypto to not reveal what they caught me doing via the webcam (that is never EVER connected to my PC unless I am doing Zoom) are still at it. During the night, from after I went to bed at about 2am until I got up and 9.30am, I got 2630 spam emails which were all diverted to a junk mailbox. I recommend Mailwasher - you just tell it what you don't want to see again and then you don't. I got rid of several thousand emails with one click. Very satisfying indeed. I went into Bolton to do a few things and came home with another migraine. Four Zapains and a couple of hours sleep in a dark room sorted that out. I cautiously watched some TV in the evening, including two of the latest episodes of 'The Traitors Canada' s3. I got the dogs out for a walk on the local park, but that was curtailed by one of our cats (Baby) following us and screeching for us to come home. 31st: I drove to Holmfirth in the evening, as I was very kindly gifted a ticket to watch Eric Johnson and his band at The Picturedrome. The parking was a total nightmare, as was the drive over the tops from Oldham way, but never mind. What a skilful player. August 1st: |
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Some shopping and stuff during the day. I made sure I got a good rest in the afternoon, as the migraines I had the other day have left me rather drained. I don't recover from them like I used to. In the evening, we played a storming gig at one of the oldest pubs in the country - The Old Man And Scythe on Chruchgate in Bolton. We always look forward to playing there. It's a cramped space, with little elbow room, biut you can see the whites of the crowd's eyes and they are all there for the music. There's no confusion at all. Once again, the parking in town was a nightmare. The crowd were really with us from the very start. We did a soundcheck before 9.30 (Dogshit Blues) and that really got them going, so we just carried on. A very good night indeed. I took two Rickenbacker basses, a Fender Precision bass and my two ancient Trace Elliot combos (from 1993 and 1994) which have just come out of retirement. They are really heavy so they may just get used on some gigs. They sounded really good. We've arranged a rehearsal for Monday evening. 2nd: |
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3rd: In the afternoon, I went to our bathroom suppliers and firmed up the re-design of the bathroom plan. It saved us £2300 and we will be returning 13 boxes of wall tiles, meaning a further saving. We have a new installer. All we need now is a start date from them. In the evening I went to our guitarist's house, way up in te hills near far-off Burnley, and we had a fairly productive rehearsal, getting a couple of songs to add into our live show. We also tossed a few ideas around for new songs. We didn't speak about next year. Bed at 11pm. 4th: 5th: Slade drummer Don Powell's one-word review of our 1965 book: "Wow". 6th: Downstairs to make a coffee. The milk was off. Bottle was dated 3rd August. Walked a few minutes to our local shop and back started again. The milk was off. Bottle was dated 3rd August. Made a hot chocolate intead on our coffee machine, which usually doesn't like me. It crapped out (of course) halfway through making a cuppa. My wife gave it a stern look, pressed the buttons again and off it went. She has AUTHORITY, I don't. So I got on with my day. Super challenge freecell and reading some downloaded music mags. After a short while, the Macmillan nurse rang back. She, quite thoughtfully, didn't want to keep me hanging on. As I expected would happen, I will be re-checked in 6 months time. I do apprecaiate that a re-test is extra work for already-stretched resources, but if a result may be flawed and therefore the result given out causes some distress, perhaps they have a duty to conduct a re-test? Amazon delivered a nice shiny trolley, that fold up quite compactly, to help with moving my gear at gigs. While I was out buying even more milk, I decided to call in at a local venue to try to catch up with the owner regarding next year's dates. I have messaged him via Whatsapp a number of times since he cancelled us for a world cup match and promised us three dates next year and an additional make-up date on top. He says he will look at the diary but he never gets back to me. I only got this year's dates by going in and catching him in person, as messaging just doesn't work. He was upstairs in the office. His staff's job is to protect him (the publican) from those awful people known as the public. It was suggested that I could send him a message. In my frustration, I said he ignores them. They took the dates that I had sent to the owner down on paper and one of the girls behind the bar promised to get back to me this evening. She didn't. I wasn't surprised. We have one more date there at the back end of the year. I'm going to keep my trap shut, or I suspect that something will happen to that date too. It has been my home gig for the last 20 years or so. In 1984 (** when it was under different management **) my band went in there on a break from recording and those of us who ate one dish all got food poisoning and had to move the next day's recording to the weekend afterwards. I have quite a history with the venue. We have introduced new members there, done an album launch there, all sorts. We don't have very much arranged for next year at the moment. I really don't appreciate the frustration involved with chasing people who don't want to be caught. The other guys in the band don't do gig hunting (to be completely fair - they haven't needed to, as I have been quite good at it). Having had enough of today, I went up to bed early with a book that I couldn't concentrate on properly. 7th: If enough venues contact me in response to messages that I have already sent, I may change my mind. The diary (as well as a feeling of obligation to the new band members) kept me playing this year when I was ready to give up. For the last few years I have been ready to hang up my bass at New Year, as I get so tired after gigs. We will see. The idea of juggling the diary to play with two bands doesn't interest me as much at the moment. Someone messaged me the other day regarding the 'Slade - song by song' book that we have been offered a contract for by an established publisher. He had thought of doing it a while ago and had made a start then had left it alone. Back in March, Chris and I both felt that it would be a VERY laborious task indeed, writing down the details of each song on each release in chronlogical order. I can't get at all enthusiastic about it. Some of Slade's lesser songs don't really even deserve to be written about and to have to write a few paragraphs about some silly piece of nonsense rhyme with a stolen tune from one of their later albums that I never play.... nope. I have always tried to avoid injecting my own opinion into any of the Slade books we've done and to have to do that for all those songs gives me the chills. We (well, I) made a bit of a start on the book about the songs, to see how the writing of that book actually felt, but I had a word with Chris and we quickly decided that we preferred to work on our own books instead. I sent a brief response to the person who asked the question, saying if he really wanted to go for it himself and do that book, to get on with it and I'd buy a copy. I know roughly how many copies Slade books sell and it's always been a case of 'as long as I have a copy on my bookshelf, it's immaterial how many they sell'. It's never been a money thing. I know what is left to be done on the Slade book front and fortunately, it's not very much. 10th: |
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The situation with the venue that is jerking us round was briefly discussed and our guitarist says 'just let it go, it's not worth the hassle'. Our drummer says 'sue the arse off them for the cancellation'. We haven't lost a small claims court case yet. On Sunday morning, I was beyond exhausted and it was almost lunchtime when I woke up. I didn't even unpack the car when I got home after the previous night's gig. I just quickly checked for any emails and went straight to bed. I'm not far from the end of the utterly fabulous Beatles book that I am reading (Mark Lewisohn's Tune In Vol 1 'the extended version') and I am really dreading finishing it. It is probably the very best music history book I have ever read and I don't want it to end. It was expensive yes, but I don't regret a single penny I paid for it. There is little prospect of Volume Two appearing any time soon, even though the author is doing twelve hour days, seven days a week, to finish it. The story is massive and the research is done, but hewants to do it properly. It will be worth the wait. Volume One was published about fourteen years ago. These books are so in-depth that the task is horrendously daunting. The more affordable paperback version is here. I can't recommend or praise this book enough. Naturally, there are people out there who are trying to pick holes in it, using things like 'amalgamated quotes' to rubbish it. This apparently makes them feel like they are 'Beatles Experts'. What have these people ever done but sit on the sidelines carping? You'll always find some utter gonad-brained simpleton lurking around who is ready to have a pop at someone who is trying to do their very best, yet you will generally find that they have done nothing much worth speaking about themselves. My wife was outside, attacking the back garden hedge with some clippers, so a degree of guilt crept in and I went to attack the top of the bushes with some shears, as they were getting a bit out of control after the recent heatwaves. It was very hot while I was out and up a ladder, snipping away, but the hedges are looking decent enough now. The green bin is well and truly full. |
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Adventures In Clubland (part 642): Then he sent me the running order for the day. Being set up for 2.15pm means being there for 1.30pm at the latest. Then hanging around for two hours to do 45 minutes. Then hanging around for 75 minutes before the second half. Then 45 minutes to get the gear out. Then the drive home. 90 minutes for our guitarist. Too much hanging about being bored by solo singers. The band discussed this and we regretfully cancelled the gig. Far too much hanging about. I chased up Horizons Music regarding the John Entwistle CD box set, as it doesn't show as having been dispatched. 11th: 12th: Horizons Music again offered me a credit note. I repeated that I want my money back. 13th: Horizons Music emailed me regarding the John Entwistle CD box set. They have cancelled my order and will refund in 14 days. On the 27th I will be right on their case. I wish that I had read this before I ordered. I splurged on the Roxy Music 'For Your Pleasure' box set that is due out later this year (Nov 6th).
17th:
I had my bass rig on stands in Burnley, as the floor there is a problem. Bass notes reverberate and hang on badly, making the sound horrendous. The same problem applied the night after in Leigh, but I was able to use two small stools instead of the stands. I'm a bit distressed by the very sudden death of the lovely Hayden Panettiere at only 36 years old. I thought she was wonderful in the things that I saw her in and hoped she would do great work in the future. Very very sad. 20th: I have been chasing up our bathroom suppliers to get them to get the installer to contact us to price up their part of the work. I mentioned that I asked about this 7 days ago as a reminder and have still heard nothing. I have also said that if we have heard nothing in 7 days I will be asking for a total refund of all monies paid to them and for a return and refund of the items that we have bought separately. 25th:
A good weekend with a gig at the tiny and packed-out Lucky 8's in Chorley. We went down very well and I'm waiting to hear back about 3 dates for next year. A couple of other venues have got with the programme, though in some cases it is taking some chasing up. One venue offered me the date of my daughter's wedding, today. I got a different date out of them... I'm a bit peed off that a couple of venues that I am holding onto provisional dates for are not responding. One since July when they messed us about because of the World Cup. I messaged the landlord yet again today about a make-up gig date and three others. It now says clearly on our website that provisional dates are available to other venues if not taken up timeously. With my band being limited to one gig per weekend, I'm rather interested in an approach that has been made for me to have a side project - a tribute band. It remains to be seen whether anything will come of this or not. I'm hopeful. I took Oscar for a bit of a long walk. He was flagging a bit so we caught the bus back for the last few stops to give him a bit of a breather. The wonderful person that was Dolly Parton has left us at the age of 80. I heard her recent traditional bluegrass albums which were a return to her musical roots and they were as authentic and as good as she was. The house band upstairs is getting far better than the one down here and far more attractive. Bed late. 26th: I have just read the reddit post about Horizons Music. If my refund hasn't arrived by just before lunchtime, I will be onto my credit card company. As I didn't have a promised delivery date, it will be Sept 2nd before I can ask for my credit card company to refund me. 29th: Today's inspirational tune. 30th: 31st:
September 1st: 2nd: 3rd:
I have also ordered the Prince 'Diamonds And Pearls' Superdeluxe box set as I found a sealed copy very cheap. It isn't one of my favourite Prince albums, so I didn't go for it on its initial release. On listening to it now, it sounds great. I still don't get on with some of the rapping that is all over some of the album (curiously enough, I don't mind when Prince does it, but Tony M gets on my wick), but that's obviously what Prince wanted to ecplore at the time. Just not my taste in music. The BluRay of a Minneapolis show at his Glam Slam club is excellent. It also has footage from a show for the Special Olympics (and its soundcheck) and a collection of full-length promo videos. |
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I went into Manchester on the train from Bolton to buy some cheese during the afternoon. It is amazing how poor Bolton Market's food area and the Manchester Arndale food market have become in recent years. I do have to say that Bolton DOES have a truly fabulous meat and fish selection, but for anything else, it's a case of forget it. There are so many foreign general food stores (just like corner shops) in there now that it's not worth bothering with. They are turning into lowest-common-denominator rubbish markets. Thank God for Bury Market. Last night and tonight we've binge-watched Trigger Point with Vicky McClure excellently playing the part of the lead bomb defuser. Fast-paced and brilliantly written and acted as usual. From seeing the last episode, it looks very much like that will very probably be the end of the programme. It's been very good. She's very good at playing tough Policewomen and Army types. There has always been a very slight danger that she may get typecast, but she has taken on other roles which have shown a different type of character and personality. |
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6th:
7th: Message from my drummer. He's managed to slice his thumb open at work. We managed to get a stand-in for the next two weeks. We also have a reserve if he isn't right for the 25th. 12th: 14th: 15th: This afternoon, I set our new Slade-related book '1964 And All That...' to publish. We are probably going to finish the decade off. Chris has done all of the necessary research and it would be a shame to waste it.
22nd: I watched the second David Essex film 'Stardust' in the late afternoon. I have to say that it was an utterly fantastic (if rather depressing) watch. If anything at all about this took away from the success of Slade's film Flame, it was how good the Davd Essex films were. The second film was just as dark and nitty-gritty subject-wise as Flame was, but it was mainly filmed in decent light. 27th: I got through the gig on Friday night - I had some issues with my bass volume being rather low - wrong impedance input socket selected - ooops - but I managed to sort it out during the break. It's looking like it was our very last one at The Polished Knob in Todmorden, as they are selling up at new year. They have been doing it for 16 years (I've been there for most of that). All good things come to an end and it was a really good venue. I will really miss them. I got a migraine on the way home, which I could really have done without. I blame it on a bag of Smoky Bacon crisps. DUH. Some Zapains and off to bed. The M62 was all speed restrictions and cones on the way home. Fortunately, due to band holidays, we miss having to go that way over the next couple of weeks when the Simister Island junction is going to be completely closed. That is going to cause REAL problems. I've got a bit of a cold and am feeling a bit rubbish anyway, so some vague plans I had made for last night and today got abandoned. I got up very late this morning in an attempt to try to let me sleep it off a bit. I find I tend to heal better from things that ail me when I am asleep - or I am at least not having to put up with it all.. October I've left diary entries on here alone for a while, as I have had an amount of stuff going on and have not felt like writing my life down for all and sundry to read. There hasn't been much to talk about. The band is off the road for a couple of weeks due to holiday time. It's getting to be particularly hard work booking gigs for next year. Venues are too busy or too idle to respond. The others don't get involved in bookings, just doing them. Plus one of my local venues has really hacked me off this year. We don't have a lot on next year and I am now looking at it as 'a phased retirement'. I'm 68 this year and don't see much point in banging my head against that wall for much longer. I'll be able to sell a load of guitars and regain some space. I'd rather leave my son actual useful money than a bunch of guitars and amplifiers to sell. My writing partner Chris and I have been batting ideas around for something to sell with 100% of the royalty proceeds donated to raise money for the Slade Monument project in Wolverhampton. I don't really want it to be something that involves a hell of a lot of work if the proceeds are going elsewhere and I am unlikely to ever even visit it. The couple of ideas we have had so far involve quite a massive writing effort on my part, so I am a bit lukewarm about doing those, just to give the money away. 18th: I didn't feel very much like doing last night's gig. I'd had a very bad day, with some family trauma going on and I just felt like going to bed and waking up again when I am 85. The gig went very well, thanks to our dep drummer Nigel, who played a blinder. We'd had a couple of weeks off, due to band holidays and I was getting quite used to not playing, to be honest. Filling the car with my gear felt like a chore and I just wanted to go back to bed, where I had spent the afternoon. |
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