fREAKjAM - The Rising Sun

Thursday nights gig was at the new and improved jam session - The fREAKJAM - featuring on lead vocals Big Daddy Jam.

After a nice and easy jaunt down Britain's premier motorway to Wales, the M4, I arrived in plenty of time as I like to do. After my weekly attempted, and indeed failed phone call, it was time to set about setting up with the setup that I like to set about setting up. As per last weeks shenanigans, I was in the 'Reverse Cowgirl' position, and to be honest I think I prefer it, at least for the sake of the jam session.

Again the 'West Drayton meets Slough' vibe continued, and I welcome every last one of our loyal jammers who support us at our new home stroke venture.

Lots of highlights this evening! The Hardest Working Man in Rock, Gary 'Wah-Wah' Reece played a fantastic set, and I was honoured to be able to back him on these finely crafted songs! Also Graeme from the superb local band Daft? was in attendance and ran through some classic G 'n' R with some new jammers to our weekly soiree. Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley was not in attendance, though did phone in to let us all know he was not coming.

With our hearts full of rock, we packed up and headed home, safe in the knowledge of a job well done!

Buying a New Amp

I would like to to conclude my new amp quest by saying that I have ordered a 'Motherload' of Line 6 equipment today. I placed an order for a Flextone III Plus 1x12 combo, 1x12 extension cab, the fancy Line 6 covers for both pieces and just for kicks a POD XT as a backup stroke recording type thing. Hopefully I should have all the stuff in a week or so, and I will soon be rocking with it! Price came in at £200 cheaper than an equivalent Marshall, and about £1500 cheaper than a Mesa Boogie!

Hooray! Lets hope it sounds good! My thanks to Mr Andy 'Bradders' Bradley for the kind loan of his Line 6 Flextone for the feasibility study I undertook yesterday.

Digital is the new valves! Lets hope The Stoners new Engl does not fall apart like the one I had!

Lee Aaron Band - Dog & Partridge

Tonight's gig rounded off the Lee Aaron 'Double Header' weekend, and took place at the Dog and Partridge in Yateley. This venue has legendary and mystic properties, as it is literally only a 'Stones Throw' from the famous Guilty Party KFC. This KFC is the legendary restaurant where all rock and roll sackings take place, and over the years literally 100's of rock and roll's famous faces have seen their careers terminated within the walls of this fried chicken mecca.

With all this history and culture so close by, we were ready to rock! Warmed up by the previous nights festivities, the band was on fine form, and I am pleased to announce that a good crowd were assembled to view what we had to offer. Lee was also pleased with the turn out, for various reasons, and I wish him the best of luck.

With the last notes of The Who ringing out, we didn't do an encore, though 'drunk woman' insisted that we did - we didn't despite her pleas.

At the end of the night, I packed up my car and listened to my 'Man With The Golden Gun' audio book. Its great, but nothing like the film!

Lee Aaron Band - Bier Keller Bracknell

fREAKjAM - The Rising Sun

Thursday nights gig was at the Rising Sun in Slough, at West London's premier jam session the 'fREAKJAM', featuring the man who sorts things out, Ian Jam. After a jaunt down the M4, I soon found myself at the hub of all jam-ular entertainment for a night in the company of whoever turned up. This was my 2nd week of jamming fun and games at this new venue, and it must be said that we are still finding out feet at this new venue. Our jamming contingent is still largely based on West Drayton contingent, and its a pleasure to see them all. That said, we did attract our first organic Slough jammer, doing all manner of rock classics! I decided to play my Les Paul, Yoshi, and I am pleased to announce that it has been signed off by Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley (who was in attendance). Tonight's theme was 'equipment swap', with amps coming my way, PRS's going other ways, and Tele's out the door. It was a festival.

With our hearts full of rock and roll music, I packed up and disappeared down the M4 at great speed and pace(ish).

Rough Justice Red Lion Twickenham

Friday nights gig was with Rough Justice at the Red Lion in Twickenham. After being warmed up from the previous nights festivities, we were ready to go! After the previous nights sound problems, it was good to be on the home turf of the Red Lion in Twickenham. In fact, it was the Red Lion in Twickenham where Hog & I met for the first time, all those years ago.....

As with previous Red Lion gigs, I am saddened to say that the Red Lion is continuing into a spiral of demise. The venue is quite poorly kept, and with the issues with the residents, the 9 'till 11pm rule continues for the music. This has the effect of a very empty first half, and a small 'critical mass' appearing about 5 songs from the end. That said, it went well, and I am pleased to report that the house PA nonsense was shelved on this visit.

Due to some reasons that I don't really know why, lots of monitors and the like were shifted about, creating a 'wedge' effect at one edge of the stage.

The Stoner decided to continue playing the 'Active Vixen', where as I pulled out the #1 Red Music Man - a safe haven full of high gain glory.

Tonight's Freebird featured the 'audience walk & guitar swap', something that I enjoyed a great deal! Even with all this shenanigans, we finished on the strike of 11pm - I am a fan of being punctual!

With ears ringing and hearts warmed, we packed up and disappeared into the night to our respective caves, homes and Boltholes.

Rough Justice - O'Neil's Woking

Friday nights gig was with the Mighty Rough Justice at the finest venue in Woking - O'Neil's.

After arriving very early, as I like to do, I was surprised not to see The Stoner in the early arriving stakes. He normally arrives between mid-day and 2pm to secure his royal parking space. As it turned out, he did not arrive until after 8.30pm! The peasants will not be happy!

With the usual setting about of setting up and the like, the rock began.

Tonight was a Rough Justice first. It was a twin Les Paul attack! I was playing Yoshi, my new Les Paul, and The Stoner was playing 'Active Vixen', his new Les Paul Studio. This Les Paul had made its way across the sea only hours earlier, flown in especially for this gig!

Sadly though, for the hearts and minds of the assembled, and indeed the band, the sound was pretty poor for the first half. A combination of stage levels, radio mic levels and the twin Les Paul attack seemed to create a mush where everyone could hear too much of the wrong thing and the like. Luckily with Music Man's back in hand, the 2nd half was much better, not perfect, but better.

That said, the gig was spectac-ular! The 2nd set contained the most rowdy mosh pit that I have ever seen at an Rough Justice gig. In fact, I am sure that Mike does not see such action with his main band, Mike Stoner's Replicant!

Tonight's finale consisted of the Oasis song, where we had the whole venue singing along and a regulation Freebird - this time without the guitar swap. I must add that the omission of this created a great deal of distress for me.

All in all a great gig, and despite some poor stage sound everyone went home safe in the knowledge of a job well done! And to quote the bar staff at the venue 'The problem with Rough Justice, they spoil it for everyone else!'

Rant - Finding A New Guitar Amp

I would like to rant about the trials and tribulations of buying a new amp. As many of you esteemed readers know, my precious #1 Scotts Custom Duoverb amp packed up recently, and I am currently using a Line 6 Frankenverb. This amp is the cab and speakers of the old #1, and the amp section of my #2. Despite the fact they are electrically identical, the new amp section sounds nowhere near as nice as the old one.

With this in mind, I decided that it was time for something new, and set out to buy a new one. I thought this would be an easy task, but it has not been! Its seems to follow a pattern. Research then excitement followed by trying out and lastly the disappointment phase. The amps I have considered are as follows:

Engl Sovereign 2x12" combo - My old Engl was probably the best guitar sound I had ever had, but its terrible reliability has put me off the brand for life. Not only was in unreliable, the backup and support of the distributors were awful. The amp shipped with microphonic preamp valves, the output transformer failed and the cab rattled. Also the covering was poor quality.

Marshall JVM - This amp really did excite me for a while, and really ticks a lot of boxes. However, I did feel going back to a valve amp was a complete step backward after buying into the realm of digital amps. I tried one in Andertons and was totally underwhelmed with it. The combo sounded really boxy, and the cleans were totally uninspiring. I could of course go for the head and 1936 2x12, but I had a 1936 once before and it was really directional and I didn't like the sound. The lack of a floor master volume pedal like the Line 6 is something that I would miss. The one in the shop even was making strange noises (probably valve problems) and to be honest I can't be doing with all that fuss after 4 years of valve free gigging.

Mesa Boogie Rectoverb - I almost bought one of these a few years back. The 1x12" really excited me and I am sure that with a few tweaks it would work out fine. However, with weight a real consideration for me, I would have to break the rig into 2 pieces - a Rectoverb 50w head and 3/4 back 2x12" cab. Of course you get into the whole valve problem again, but the main stumbling block is the price. £2300! I have bought cars that have cost less than that! Bear in mind a similar Marshall rig can be had for about £900.

Line 6 Vetta - This so far has been the best one that I have tried out. I gave it a blast in Andertons and instantly it gave me the kind of drive sound that I like. It also has all the Fender clean tones which I like to use. The only problem with this amp is that it is so damn complicated! I am sure with 6 months of fiddling, you could get a great sound out of it, but I would like to go and do gigs and not constantly fiddle with pre-sets! The other advantage is that you can get a Vetta in a 2x12" or a Head and cab version for Caesar 'girls back' considerations.

Line 6 Flextone III - This is the amp which I am currently in the 'excitement' phase. Mr Bradders is kindly lending me his one this weekend, so I can get to grips with it. From what I understand, its not a million miles different to the Duoverb and the Vetta so hopefully it might be 'The One'. The other nice thing about it, is that you can get a 1x12" 75w combo, that becomes 150w when you add a 1x12" extension cab to make a small stack. Each piece is quite light and the whole package comes in at about £550.

To conclude, I have far too much time on my hands.

Rant

I would like to rant about the sound at O'Neil's in Woking. I have played this venue with 5 or 6 different bands, and it always sounds pretty poor, and at last nights Rough Justice gig the sound on stage was at an all time low. I would also like to rant about the twin Les Paul guitar attack of the Stoner and I also sounded pretty poor, creating a guitar mush. My Les Paul is a great guitar, but it seems that sadly its not a Rough Justice guitar! By way of contradiction to all of this, I have played a few other gigs with the Les Paul, and it sounds great, and the assembled mosh pit didn't seem to worry about any sound issues as they were engaging in rowdy moshing behaviour!

Mo'Rockan Soul - The Camphill Club

Saturday nights gig was with the Souths #1 Pardy band, Mo'Rockan Soul at the Camphill Club in west Byfleet. After another trouble free Garmin Sat Nav guided trip to the venue, I arrived early and was greeted by my colleague Owlamundo and waited for the merry troops to arrive.

Again, with a seasonally unusually hot night, I was expecting a lacklustre attendance, but thanks to our legions of 1000's of fans (just for you, Awesome) we packed in a good crowd at the Camphill. I decided again to play my New Les Paul Yoshi, though to be fair, the Music Man is a much better guitar for Mo'Rockan Soul. That said, I did enjoy playing it very much!

The band played very well tonight, and I took the opportunity to put a whole load of old new songs into the set - living on the edge, not even playing safe at all! I though that this evenings reading of 'Hedonism' was excellent.

Nice to see Richard on the camera this evening, and matey who wears the 'Save the Veg - Eat more Meat' waistcoat, together with some other familiar faces.

With airhorns successfully blown and Mo'Rockan Soul Part 2 a firm success, we packed up our Sprinters and drove into the night, happy a job well done!

Lee Aaron Band - Cricketers Yateley

Friday nights gig was with 16 year old drumming sensation Lee Aaron at the Cricketers in Yateley. After a nice Garmin Sat Nav guided trip to this venue, I arrived to find Bal and Lal already at the venue. After negotiating a veritable 'tight squeeze' to the rear of the public house, I unloaded my equipment (missus) and set about the setting up process. After unleashing my good news on all and sundry, I prepared for the evening of rocking. Tonight was special for me, as it was the first gig I had done on my new Les Paul, Yoshi, since installing a Bare Knuckles Miracle Man pickup in the bridge position.

Tonight I was extra specially pleased to see that Luke graced us with his presence this evening. Obviously the continued threat of a Kentucky made him appear this evening, and I must confess a small joy appeared in my heart when I say that pale blue Fiat puttered its way onto the pubs gravel drive way.

Thanks to slightly hotter than average day, lots of people were outside, and I was expecting most of them to remain there as we played our special house blend of rock, roll, drums and Guilty Party classics. But as luck would have it we drew a crowd almost from the off! Lots of familiar faces came down to visit us, and as the evening went on it was practically a full house! The now traditional 'Who' ending went down a storm, and I very much enjoyed the jazz reading of 'Ruby'

With the added bonus of being very happy with the tone of Yoshi, the gig was a good one! In fact with the euphoria, and some added tiredness and some Luke thrown in for good measure, I left my guitar stands behind! As it happened Bal picked them up for me, but I must mention that they have been living on borrowed time since a Briefcase Blues Brothers Gig in Nottingham when they were almost forgotten that night!

With this unintentional lighter load, I disappeared into the night on my 'Stern Friday'.

fREAKjAM - The Rising Sun

Tonight heralded the first jam session at the new venue of the Rising Sun in Slough. As many of you in Caesar World know, The Rising Sun in Slough is a great established music venue, run by people who like and care for bands who play there. So with this in mind, we were all very excited when the deal was finalised to move the jam to this new venue. Despite some members of the bands reservations that we would alienate the hard core West Drayton contingent, the first night was very good indeed! We managed to attract nearly every one of our reg-ular jammers along creating a 'West Drayton comes to Slough' type feel to the festivities. As a result, the usual faces played some of the classic jam night hits and everyone was happy as Larry! Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley was not in attendance sadly, and neither was the Hardest Working Man in Rock Gary Reece.

That said, I am pleased to announce that I played my new Les Paul 'Yoshi' complete with new Bare Knuckles 'Miracle Man' bridge pickup and corresponding truss rod tweak and it sounded and felt really nice indeed! So good in fact, I was lucky enough to break a string! Even one of the Gibson Brothers was 'in the house' and approved of its matt finish and the like.

As we said goodbye to one and all, I packed up my Sprinter and disappeared down the M4 to my homestead, where the deer and the antelope play.

Mo'Rockan Soul - The Awesome O'Neil's Woking

Saturday nights gig was with Mo'Rockan Soul at O'Neil's Woking. Tonight had a different flavour as Dion was away on a 'personal texting appointment', so we had the talents of Awesome Tony on the Drums. As some of you may know, Awesome Tony covered many of the gigs in the early days of Mo'Rockan Soul, so it was a pleasure to welcome him back to the 'fold'.

After a leisurely drive to Woking to park up and the like, various 'members' of the band arrived and we set about setting up. Tonight we also had the talents of WW Babelfish Paul on the sound, as Hog was otherwise engaged. He bought with him all kinds of bass and echo boxes, compressors, EQ's and the like to ensure our lead singer was happy with the mix.

I am very pleased to say after last weeks less that great MRS gig, this one was a polar opposite! Almost from the 10.30pm start the audience were up for one serious pardy! Working our way through a slightly altered set to full Awesome compliance, we kept up the momentum and kept the punters happy! I must say, there were some very pleasing monitor tumbles this evening, so many I lost count! There were monitors sliding here there and everywhere, together with legs and arms 'akimbo'!

As we moved into Mo'Rockan Soul Part two, we really had the crowd in the palm of our hands! Despite a few dodgy endings here and there, I thought the band played very well indeed! WW BabelPaul did a sterling job and my congratulations must go to Awesome Tony for some awesome drumming.

As we played our final encore of 'Hey Jude', we packed up our equipment, hopped in our Sprinters and after avoiding drunk teenagers dressed like prostitutes vomiting in the road - we all disappeared into the night.

LOF 8

Rough Justice - The Armstrong Gun

Friday nights gig was with the Earth's most powerful rock band, Rough Justice, at the Armstrong Gun in Englefield Green.

This venue for many years has been the spiritual home of the band, having played 100's of gigs there. We have even headlined festivals in the garden, and the pub was the site of the last ever Classic Era Rough Justice Gig complete with 29 and a half minute version of Freebird. With this in mind, it was with great sadness that we found out earlier in the week that Stu had left the Gun. Thankfully our gig was still taking place but we knew that things were going to be very different.

When we arrived, the vibe of the whole place was just not right, and our usual loyal followers were not in attendance either making an odd evening. Even my super loud 'We Will Rock You' Las Vegas shirt could not save the evening.

Whilst I felt that the band played well, with Dangerous only just arriving in time (we never doubted him) something was not quite right. Even a private performance of 'Rosie' for the round the corner people did little to redeem the evening. As an indication of how things went, I only threw one pick.

Unusually for Rough Justice, we chose not to end the evening with Freebird, instead a reading of 'Don't Look Back in Anger' which was dedicated to Stu.

As we packed up and disappeared into the night, we looked back on the great gigs of the past at The Gun, and wondered the future of our forthcoming bookings.

Jam Night Change of Venue

We are on the move again!

After a short spell at the Blues Bar in West Drayton, I am pleased to announce that the fREAKJAM now has a new permanent home. The new venue is the Rising Sun in Slough:

The Rising Sun,
18 - 20 Windsor Road,
Slough,
Berkshire,
SL1 2EJ

As before we will be running our jam session every Thursday night from 9pm until 12pm, and our first jam session in this new venue will be this week, Thursday the 8th of May 2008.
It would be fantastic if you could join us at this new venue. Come and sing a song, play an instrument or just enjoy the music!

Hope to see you soon,

Caesar and the fREAKJAM Band

fREAKJAM - Blues Bar West Drayton

Last nights gig was at the Blues Bar in West Drayton with the fREAKJAM band. This evening heralded the last jam session for us in West Drayton. AS many of you know, we had a 4 week trial at the Blues Bar. We never felt that the Blues Bar was our final spiritual home, and luckily the opportunity to move to The Rising Sun in Slough became available. This is altogether a better venue for us. Its an established music venue with bands 2 nights a week already, and they also run student band nights on occasion. We start next week and hope that a new area will bring new jammers and continued success for the jam-ular community!

However, the evening went well! There was a good turn out, with classic jammers such as Johnny D, Adrian and Cindy, together with newer members of the community such as Saz and the Contraband Chemical Experts. Pretend Pop Star Mark Chudley was in attendance.

Despite playing 'round the corner' it didn't actually sound too bad, and I even decided to try out my Garlic and Onion flavoured #3 Duoverb, which worked ok but needed a few tweaks here and there. I also extensively pondered a new amp purchase with PPSMC, and rather than receiving an answer that was black or white, I got one that was murky pink.

As we packed up all of our equipment from West Drayton for the last time, we said our goodbyes and disappeared into the night. I even started listening to Riley Martin's audio book 'The coming of Tan'.