Update coming ... in the meantime...

... haven't had time (or internet access) over the last couple of days. Before I do the Bristol & Leeds (& Manchester!) updates here is a picture of my old mate (& former Mighty Lemon Drops sound engineer) Noel Thompson taken on a day off in London last Friday by me at The Havers aka The Haverstock Arms aka Chris Evans's / Noel Gallagher's local (owned by that barman bloke from TFI Friday) ... enjoy the pic's of Melinda Messanger & Barbara Windsor in the background !.

From Norwich, it's the quiz of the week .....

... so said Nicholas Parsons at the beginning of every Sale Of The Century for what seemed like a hundred years (that is an old tv quiz show for any possible younger readers). The drive from Nottingham to Norwich is actually quite a nice one, no real motorways to speak of. And talking of our drives ... let me give any readers / followers of this blog a description of the average drive. Usually Dyan & Eddie opt for the rear lounge of our vehicle, which contains six comfortable coach/train style seats, a fridge, a dvd player with not one but two screens, and usually the remains of the previous nights rider (mainly crisps & beer, though there is actually some smoked mackrel in the fridge as I type left over from the Dingwalls gig!). Myself, so far I have opted to sit up front next to Chalkie as he drives. He is top company on these journeys, and together we put the world right with great conversation about everything from local history to football to analyzing the original line-up of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Ed & Dyan are usually asleep by then, though Eddie sweetly admitted last night that he loves drifting off into slumber while listening to the wisdom he hears coming from up front of the bus (which is a relief as sometimes I think I am boring poor old Chalkie to death !!!). So anyway we arrive in Norwich & it's bloody freezing with snow & ice on the ground, & the venue is a converted old church which houses the Norwich Arts Centre, which I believe I helped build .... yes really.... though not physically with my own hands or anything, but i do remember as far back as 1986 when I was in The Mighty Lemon Drops we did a benefit gig to help raise funds for a planned Arts Centre in Norwich , so in a nutshell last nights show was made possible entirely by ME, basically!

Anyway, the gig was great n'all that, but instead of banging on about us I would like to introduce you to our amazing opening band on the tour, The Lovely Eggs. There are just two of them, Holly & Dave, & they are just brilliant, and they are also very funny people & great company. ! Go & listen to them. In a weird way there is something in there that reminds me a bit of what my pals The Happy Hollows might be like if Charlie & Chris let Sarah do exactly what was in her head all of the time ... and I mean that as a compliment to both parties by the way!

Ok, day off today, then Bristol tomorrow, the missus arrives, & we play on Viv Stanshall's old boat, the legendary Thekla !!!!

Nottingham

The Bodega Social ... possibly previously owned by the Heavenly group of folks if I am not mistaken ! A great little venue ! I like Nottingham ... has the oldest pub in the country, home of Boots the chemist, also that Shane Meadows bloke who makes those top films (though that last one with the kid from This Is England living in London with the Polish kid was ok but not my personal fave!). And not forgetting (& least famously!) once home to brilliant post-punk band The Favourites, who managed to provide me, as a record collector, with my single longest ever search ever to track down a record I heard on the John Peel show in 1979 ... i finally managed to track down a copy of their elusive & frankly incredible "S.O.S" 7" 45 just a couple of years back (via eBay ... at great expense!). (The Favourites were also previously one of the first ever bands signed to Stiff records in 1976 as pub-rockers Plummett Airlines, fyi !). Anyway, a fun time was had by all. We ate dinner in a spooky-creepy pub called the Pit & Pendelum ... if 16 year old goth girls dressed as 8 year old goth-girls is your thing, then this is the place for you ! Again I missed the opening bands (I was meeting my old mate Ferrett in the aforementoned P&P) but everybody said they were ace ! It was a rocking gig for a cold (snowy!) Wednesday night, & we met some really nice people. Afterwards the club became an indie dance club (an insane one that, for some reason played Rosanna by Toto !) & I have attatched a picture of some broken glass & puke on the streets of Nottingham to give you an idea of what it was like ! After a few more drinks with Ferrett, on the way back home I caught Eddie prowling the streets of Nottingham desperately trying to locate a bottle of red wine to accompany he & Dyan's late night soiree: watching Die Hard on the hotel tv !! Aaaah .... now we're talking ! !!! (the Bodega kindly sold him a bottle to take out btw !).

Come back to Camden...

Well the day arrived, the "official" debut of EWITFRN (rolls off the tongue !!)). London Dingwalls. I spent many a night here in the 80's as a youngster, one of the most memorable nights was watching an unknown bunch of oiks from Manchester load their gear onto the stage about to play third on the bill at the Monday indie Panic Station night, then witness the bassist take a piss up his bass-amp thinking he was in the toilet ... it was The Happy Mondays and they went on to do ok ! Anyway, our gig was ace ! After a band/crew communal Camden Weatherspoons steak Tuesday Grill Club soiree & meeting some pals in the Lock tavern (including my mate Cubby who I hadn't seen since the end of 94), i was a tad miffed to realize that I had missed both Fulcher Smith & Dance (featuring two of Ed's fellow Art Bruters ... the band name is sort-of the give-away as to which two!) & the great Internet Forever (though they will play with us in Leeds, so there will be no excuse for missing that one!). I didn't get any pics of the gig, but here's one of Ian of Art Brut helping Eddie offload our sweat-shop made merch onto unsuspecting kids, & one of me & a bunch of my pals in the Lock Tavern. Oh & then it was back to TOTP towers to celebrate, along with visiting US rockers Surfer Blood celebrating the end of their first UK visit and our Chalkie celebrating his birthday, singing Wurzels lyrics along to Melanie songs into the small hours ... and yes it was quite a late one !

Meet The Team ...

This is a pic my old mate Paul Lunt took of "the team" before the Birmingham gig, L-R Dyan, Eddie, Chalkie & myself ! Cheers !

Brumburger....

... is the title of a tune by Birmingham born & bred Lawrence Hayward, ex of Felt, Denim & more lately the quite brilliant Go Kart Mozart. Laughing Larry stole that from the not-very-successful Cliff Richard film "Take Me High", "Brum Burger" being the name of a burger served at the fictitional 1970's Birmingham restaurant that pre-colostomy Cliff worked at in the film (check out this amazing youtube clip HERE). Nothing in Birmingham today really looks as it did in this movie/70's Brum anymore (despite going relatively unchanged for MANY years previously!), so much so that I managed to get lost twice walking around my old stomping-ground! In my defence, the venue we played at The Flapper is kind of out of the way, in the newly gentrified canal district, & Chalkie got us there nice & early so we had plenty of time to wander ! After soundcheck I went to meet a load of my old Wolvo mates in The City Tavern which had the best pint of Davenports bitter you could imagine (yes Davenports is back ... remember the old ad's in the 70's?? click HERE), then it was over to the gig, pausing only to take a pic of Noddy Holder's star on the B'ham Broad St Walk Of Fame! (yes, really !!). The gig was good, especially considering it was only booked a week ago as a warm-up. What else?..oh a couple of nice chaps took some nice pix that you can see if you click HERE ! Couple of days off then it is the " official debut" in London at Dingwalls on Tuesday 9th! More then !

Cambridge / the UK live debut of EWITFRN

Firstly, I was wrong , there is no free wi-fi internet on National Express coaches, though we did get a good glimpse of a pensioners cock for entertainment (we sat right next to the toilet & somebody opened the door on the poor old guy as he was mid-leak!). And we now have our first UK gig under our belt. Cambridge city center is lovely (my first time there ever!) though of course we were playing at a run-down-pub-converted-to-gig in a less salubrious part of town! The opening band The Regency Array were great. Unfortunately we made the minor error of leaving "Drumphrey", the machine containing all our rhythm/backing tracks for the tour, in Camden, so we had to use the back-up plan of playing the entire gig along to Dyan's iPod. Thankfully, despite a few technical errors, it worked & a good time was had by all! Also the promoter was really generous with the rider (note to gig promoters: bands really like this touch, fyi !) ... we were chomping on hummus & salami sandwiches washed down with cheap vodka while listening to The Replacements into the small hours at the Travelodge! Birmingham here we come !