Recognising Chester Bennington

I'm back home now after an amazing weekend of driving down then up the country playing gigs to people who were actually listening and enjoying the night, and then getting some cash for my efforts. In other words, a perfect weekend for an unsigned troubadour much like myself.

Major thanks to Alt Track in Bradford who stepped in at the last moment to get me on the bill for their show at Bar Zuu in Bradford. It was a really great night, with amazing bands playing. Captain Hotknives was playing, and after listening to his music for around 2 years, it was amazing to actually see him live. I still wouldn't let him marry our Denise though, what would the kids be like?

The third band of the night was a side-project, but it was utterly fantastic. They were called Foxes Faux, and contained a bazookie, 12 string guitar, an astonishing violinist, djembe, bassist and mandolin player. The songs were impressively written and the musicianship second to none. Finally, Alt-Track played to close the night with their punk rock electronica style of music. Really well done with great lyrics, including a show stopping accapella rap to end it.

The night ended with a wee drive from Bradford to Huddersfield where my good friend James 'Bar' Bowen gave me a bed for the night, and an awesome breakfast to get me going the next day for my drive to Cardiff.

I arrived at Cardiff around 6pm and found the flat I was playing at in the evening. It was a friend of mine named Chris's 21st Birthday, and he had invited me to play as part of a house gig alongside Ben Marwood. The night was horrendously fun, and perhaps one of the best house parties I've played. Daddy fought the law finally felt fun again.

Finally it was an 11 hour drive back to Dundee, but oh so fucking worth it.

On the road again, paying my back taxes

If only I could pay my taxes with playing shows! Anyways, this weekend has a couple of gigs which will both be awesome:

• Friday 20th November - Bar Zuu, Bradford with Sounds of Swami and Alt-Track, 7.30pm, Free
• Saturday 21st November - Chip's Flat, Treforrest, with Ben Marwood

The next gig after these two is The Vale bar where we'll be recording our live EP thing. Full details over at the facebook page.

To cap it all off

Small update to say I'll be playing a solo show at Capitol in Glasgow on Sunday night. Roscoe Vacant is also playing, which is always a pleasure!

Perhaps come along? It's only £3 entry and it's a birthday celebration for John from Firestorm who turns 21. I'll also be playing a new song.

Onwards, punk rock soldiers.

I don't know if there needed to be an announcement or anything, but I felt like checking out the new backend of the blog again.

Yesterday I asked Woody to join the band permanently as the drummer. I've spoke in length with Puggs about it, and we both agreed that this was for the best. Puggs's only reservation was that this was getting all a bit to "Behind the music", with amicable splits etc followed by a "HE KICKED ME OUT THE FUCKING BAND" statement.

So yeah, now you know. Have a video of the band and Woody in action:

Hackers

Sadly, not the film from the early nineties with a supple Angelina Jolie. More that due to some cretins from behind the curtain of the internet, my website was a full scale spam server. I won't go in to full details, but suffice to say I've lost all my previous blog posts going back to March 2006, including a couple of tour diaries and many more memories.
Therefore, I am currently trying to salvage what ever posts were syndicated to other places. If you have a blog that unexpectantly gets a ping back for a post that's already received one, well, I'm sorry :)

Catching my breath

Finally had a few days of downtime after an exhausting and hectic weekend. Oxjam was all over the weekend, with myself and the band playing on Saturday at the 13th Note, and then myself running the Mono stage on the Sunday (featuring United Fruit and The Meatmen who you should check out).

Our set at the 13th note went well as far as I could see, everyone seemed to have a great time. By the end of the day we (and all the other bands playing that stage) had raised over £200. Massive thanks to Wudee for standing in for Puggs at such short notice!

Tuesday night continued the mayhem with our support slot for Chris T-T, who was totally and utterly brilliant. We played a slightly shifted around set to normal, and are still trying to find our stride with the new full band arrangements of a few songs.

The new song we’ve been playing called Backwards We Play is sounding immense, and hopefully there will be some footage of it on Youtube soon. The audiences seem to like it as well, which is always a bonus!

It’s a bit of downtime at the moment for the band, no gigs booked until the 28th of November at The Vale Bar. This is a headline show, so expect a longish set, and whats more we’re gonna be recording, possibly for some kind of release. So, if you want to be a part of it, mark it in your calendars now!

Tonight we take Glasgow

Last night’s gig in Edinburgh was surprisingly good. Surprising in that with four Edinburgh gigs under my belt, three have been pretty crap. It was in a venue called Henry’s Cellar Bar which was very much like the 13th Note in Glasgow. I had to drive up to Dundee afterwards, so could only see one other act on the bill. They were called A Lost Generation and were pretty damn good. Hardcore punk with political messages and really fucking tight. Also, they donate 50p from their £1.50 EP’s to the Glasgow Street Kids charity which is an amazing idea.

However, the main reason for this blog is to try and convince you that you should buy your early bird tickets for the Glasgow Oxjam Takeover. Basically, on the 24th and 25th of October 150 bands will be playing across Glasgow’s Merchant City in order to raise awareness (and cash) for Oxfam. Myself and the band are headlining the 13th Note Stage on the 24th, with a whole slew of acts that I fucking love including Roscoe Vacant and El Bastardos. Judith Harron from my band is also doing her first ever Glasgow show, which makes this extra special!

The early bird tickets are £6, after the last 29 have been sold the price will rise to £8. You can get them from We Got Tickets, and then trade the e-ticket for the wrist band at Oxjam Music on Byres Road, or in Mono (King St, Glasgow). This wrist band then gets you in to all the festivites across the weekend, where bands such as The Xcerts, The Attic Lights, Sons and Daughters and Many more (including one that I almost wrote there but had to delete it since its extra secret and special).