Rough Justice - The Camphill Club

Friday nights gig was with the titans of the pub rock covers circuit 'Rough Justice' at the Camphill club, on their ongoing farewell tour.

The Camphill was the very venue where Hog made his legendary announcement that he was to leave the band, and bring the 15 year rock legacy to an end. Our last gig at the Camphill would have been our last there, but they were keen to book us one more time! They simply could not get enough of that rock!

Tonight was a very special event as it was the debut performance of Red Rocket Mike in the Rough Justice engine room, as the Mighty Mammal was busy with his charity work (something that he does not like to talk about). In fact, it was the debut and last time that RRM would be seen performing with the band!

The Camphill Mob are a very special bunch of people, who really enjoy our delicate house blend of rock and covers! They also really enjoy some of the other antics that we like to get up to such as KFC buckets and orange attire! And as this was a very special night all of the re-ulars honoured us, and especially The Stoner, in their orange regalia! It really was a sea of vitamin C which literally would have cured scurvy quicker than you can say Guantanamo Bay!

The gig itself was a great 'blast', with Hog outsourcing the PA to WW Paul, allowing Hog to consume some of his favourite beverages to excess! It also allowed me to 'hark back' to the early days of the band where I operated in a taxi driver capacity. Sadly I could not wear the famous taxi driver jacket (which is customary) as Taffy burnt it about 10 years ago.

The gig ended with the customary Freebird with the now regulation 'triple swap'. I also was pleased to work my way through a record number of picks breaking all previous records!

As you would imagine, a simple Freebird was not enough for those Camphill fans, and a numerous number of encores were performed to critical acclaim!

With many 'orange shots' taken and much talk of a 'Hell freezes over' re-union by the fans, we all disappeared into the night in our respective Sprinters.

A great night for rock in general!

RJU!

Quote Of The Day

You have to separate the art from the artist.

I thank you.

The Floydian Doors - The Sun Inn Hungerford

Friday nights gig was with The Floydian Doors at the Sun Inn in Hungerford.

Now this was a last minute affair and something where I had my Captain Dep hat firmly on!

I was contacted earlier on in the week from a chap called Nico who runs the Floydian Doors. The Floydian Doors play a delicate blend of songs from both The Doors and Pink Floyd. An unusual combination it must be said, but I was up for the challenge! I did tell Nico that I knew a handful of Floyd songs but hardly any Doors songs - in fact I had never heard of The Doors before that film came out! But I did an evening of prep work, and armed with this knowledge I was ready to rock, sort of!

After the regulation Friday nap, and with my dodgy back not feeling too bad for a change, Weavel and I headed down the M4 for a 60 mile trip for an evening of interesting musical endeavours!

With my equipment set up, and ear plugs jammed in my ears it was time for some blag-tastic playing! As it turned out, it as not as bad as I thought it would be. The drummer was a colleague of virginal drumming sensation Lee Aaron and we clicked straight away. The choice of material was a bit tricky in places but I got through it in the end! The set finished with a 'bombastic' reading of 'Another Brick In The Wall' - THWMIR and TNWMIR Gary Reece would have been proud of me!

As we were packing up, Nico led the assembled chavs on a rousing chorus of 'The Great Gig In The Sky', which has them 'spooshing' their pints everywhere and asking for more Oasis songs.

As I said my goodbyes to my new found Internet friends, I packed up my equipment and headed to Tesco for a 2am weekly shop. Its fair to say that 150+ items through the self service checkout was much more challenging than the gig was!

Pesky sneezing causing an extra pesky back!

Hannah O'Sullivan's William Shatner Video of the Week

fREAKJAM - The Rising Sun

Good evening ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to this weeks entry to the creative writing contest.

Once upon a time there was a band of jammers who took their tired souls to perform every week, and allow all and sundry to join them as they spread the word of rock! This merry band consisted of Dr PAPOS, The Mighty Mammal, Dangerous, Caesar and Ian Jam, who was the one who sorted things out.

This merry band of jammers assembled themselves at the Rising Sun, and quite literally all manner of fun and rock frolics ensued!

Like some kind of literal rock 'pied pipers' they attracted people from all around, and this partic-ular week they succeeded in attracting a fine ole bunch of music playing people! As they blew their tin flutes, the following people were attracted to Slough to dance a fancy jig - The BSR Boys, Johnny D, Big Man 'Sax' Bal, Teen Idol Lee Aaron, Lefty John, Duel Projekt and Jake to name a few!

It was observed by those very jammers that Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley was in attendance,and bought with him an excellent Swedish band 'High Voltage' who literally stole the show!

The fREAKJAM boys also enjoyed the talents of new comers 'Manhole' who played some very pleasing music indeed!

But despite all this hard rocking goodness, there was a moment of sadness when it was realised that THWMIR and TNWMIR Gary Reece was nowhere to be seen! How they all cried a tear of rock and jamming sadness! Luckily for the jam community, they were all safe in the knowledge that he was doing 500 gigs elsewhere. This happy and joyous news soon turned their frowns upsidedown!

As you all know in Internet land, the fREAKJAM boys never break laws, and thanks to this they allowed Adrian to finish the night with his legally required 'Purple Rain' extravaganza with Lee Aaron on the big bass drum!

All of this excitement, fun and games soon took its toll on our jam night pals, and soon they were ready for their beds. With this in mind, they all shared a delicious cocoa and said 'good night'!

THE END

Purple is back!

The Lee Aaron Band - The Rising Sun Slough

Good evening one and all, and welcome to the official Lee Aaron band gig report for the shenanigans that went on at the Rising Sun on Saturday. So please, settle back, grab yourself a cola or a St Clements and enjoy the delights of my 'random word generator' style gig report.

It will be of no surprise to re-ular readers that the evening began with a Weavel fuelled trip to Slough, the very location that the evenings rocking was set to take place. As you would imagine, I arrived in plenty of time for the festivities - sadly not Guilty Party early which would have meant arriving almost a week before!

This was the 2nd visit to the Rising Sun for the Lee Aaron Band travelling rock roadshow, and it was highly anticipated by all and sundry. Luckily for us our manager Luke was on hand to control the somewhat rowdy crowds and get people to form orderly queues for autographs and the like. In fact, Luke was able to provide Lee with a 'clear path' of escape when young ladies offered themselves to him. He was quite literally able to 'run like a cat with its arse on fire' without his traction or speed being impeded! This is all in a days work for our manager Luke, who juggles these duties with booking flights for Brendan Shine and Dana.

With all this in place, it was on with the show! The evening started quietly, though towards the end of the night we played up a literal 'storm'! I must thank the friends who came out to see our delicate house blend of Guilty Party and Rock, including Mr & Mrs Owens, Johnny D, Shroomy Sue, Daft from Frontman and matey.

Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley was in attendance.

As the evening ended with a rousing reading of that 'slow one' classic 'Hey Jude', we soon were packing up and the like. As I was on Dion duty, I was driving down the A4 before Lee had even though about polishing his cymbals for the 30th time!

A great night, even with an out of character 'amp fiddle' one song in.

We just wanna rock - acoustically!

Mo'Rockan Soul - The Twickenham Tup

Friday nights gig was with England and the Home counties #1 pardy band. Mo'Rockan Soul at the Twickenham Tup.

This is the first Mo'Rockan Soul gig for some time, and indeed the first gig since we lost our dearly missed friend Owl da Bass.

After the regulation Friday nap, I was soon motoring down a short series of roads to the 'Tup'. For those of you who don't know, the 'Tup' is the new home of the Red Lion. The management of the Red Lion had to vacate the premises and decided to move their business to this long established venue. The Red Lion, depending on who you believe is now going to be a Tesco, flats, demolished or drug rehabilitation halfway house.

With all this in mind, I was very pleasantly surprised on arrival to find a friendly venue, with warm and accommodating staff! They also had an in house engineer to take care of our every need! By all accounts, the 'Tup' had to move the stage as they were getting some complaints from the neighbours, so we were the first to christen the new location.

Sitting in for Owl, we had the talents of fREAK-1-C bass player Lillian, and it was a pleasure to see him in this new year foray of all things pardy!

The gig itself was a great atmosphere! Quite a number of people came to see us, and despite and earlier throat problem I was able to 'woo' the crowd with a power 'Love Shack'.

Sadly, thanks to the neighbours we had to cut our set short and finish at 10.35pm which was a real shame as we had only just launched into Mo'Rockan Soul part 2 and yet to reach a critical mass. During this brief 2nd set, we were able to 'live audition' a new member of the MRS family Nic on bass, and we were all agreed that we would like to see him again to sample his home cooking.

With Gordon Clown's barmy blue army starting to sniff about the pub (obviously no speeding motorists to hassle) I started to pack up my troubles and head home in the rain.

Hopefully a re-birth if you will of the pop-ular MRS franchise, and the start of a new year of maximum pardy!

Better shift this beard!

Ken Malmsteen as Speed Zen

Once again everyone's favourite banned jam night attendee is showing off some of his martial arts expertise.

Enjoy 'Speed Zen' doing 'Wushu' amongst other things.

fREAKJAM - The Rising Sun

Hello and welcome to this weeks jam night instalment. It has been pondered that the world will see a cataclysmic event like never seen before if the jam report does not go up before the next jam. So, with this in mind, I am presenting this random rambling of letters and words before the night of rock and jam that lies ahead for all of us!

This is the first jam night report it almost 40 years that does not have the benefit of some form of pictorial evidence! This, I understand is not regulation and may require an additional Creme Egg to restore the equilibrium stroke balance. So with this in mind, I will probably make up what happened like I do normally.

I started the evening with a new Thursday feature, the Thursday nap! After much success with the pioneering Friday nap, it quite literally was only a matter of time before this Friday tradition spread 'like wildfire' to other days!

So rested as I was, I 'hopped' in Weavel and headed down that combination of roads that make up this once great nation.

As I unpacked Weavel and set about setting up, I set my car down in the set down area, thought about the set for the evening, and even pondered a badgers set for no apparent reason.

As the evening began, many of us were relieved that PAPOS had serviced the ex-Caesar Marshall with a new set of valves! These pre-historic glass envelopes allowed his pure rock energy to flow without loud Rice Crispy style 'snap, crackle and pop'.

The evening was on the quiet side as we began, but as the evening wore on the number of punters and jammers soon swelled up like a rather sore bee-sting. Sets from Johnny D, Gibson Brother Steve, The BSR boys, matey, bloke and Dave from Spider and Dave & Dale fame. Shroomy Sue joined us showing off her drumming 'chops'.

As many of you would expect, the evening closed with the traditional Adrian 'Purple Rain' ending, which is covered, I believe by a local by-law in the county of Berkshire.

As I packed up my sorrows, I soon headed home listening to the ramblings of Riley Martin.

Pesky back! Lets hope it lasts the weekend!

STOP PRESS!!!! Pictures now in! Thanks Shroomy!

Guitar Hero Transfer

I am please to announce that I have relinquished Brian May in his duties as my guitar hero.

Having grown up on his guitar playing, I have for many years enjoyed the mystique surrounding his home made guitar, his songwriting and performance skills. I have also been fascinated by multi part harmonies, the Deaky amp and his fine guitar tone.

However, thanks to his ramblings on his website www.brianmay.com, I have been totally put off him to be honest. He has gone from guitar hero to grumpy old man with agenda's in my estimations. As a result, he will no longer be required as of today in his capacity as guitar hero.

So with this in mind, I am appointing my new guitar hero Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley!

As many of you know, Mark Chudley is the master of the fake Les Paul, a fashion guru in the world of cardigans and T-Shirts (the Dopey and Anti Nowehere League are my favouries) and the leader of the entertain not educate movement.

PPSMC has now signed my Brian May guitar, and the guitar hero transfer is now complete!

The King is dead - long live the King!