Gig  List 2008  & News

   Book........and ......New  CD.........see below gig list....................................................................................

E-mail                                Telephone 01308 425649

New Book

  The process of collating from my 25 years of diaries some of the funny things that happened to me at gigs is now complete and copies of this are now available at gigs and from the website. There are 183 'anecdotes' and the book shows the original, if somewhat illegible, entries (included for authentification) with a typed 'translation' for easy reading. The venues and dates are shown and some of them have explanatory notes and there are sections on bad gigs, performing abroad, TV and radios stories, blunders, trouble with the police and customs, buying things in shops to make my 'instuments' and many others . There are lots of pictures and people tell me it's very funny. It costs £9 inc. P&P. To get a copy, please e-mail or telephone.

Below are 5 of the shorter ones that I've picked out more or less at random.:-

#13

[This ] was to have been ‘Cabaret a go-go’(!) but there was only me as cabaret with, I was told, an El Salvadorian band [real ]. When I arrived they were sound-checking with enormous guitars. When I later walked into several of them without even seeing them I realised they were normal-sized guitars but very small people....

...[In the interval I was ] bought a drink by a bloke at the bar who said his mate had rung his wife to say there was a bloke singing with a birdcage on his head. ‘’Come home,’’ she’d said, ‘’you’re pissed.’’

...I went into Del’s caravan for the money and he had trouble controlling his big black dog. ’’Down, Caesar, down’’ didn’t work too well, probably because he was dressed as Andy Pandy. When I pointed this out he told me that, when he’d once dressed as one of the Supremes, the dog wouldn’t let him into the caravan.

A ‘poet’ about 50 with bare feet and a drum was funny[not intentionally ]. I’d been told he’d last time done a poem about genital herpes and this time he sort of sung one with:’’...good girls, legs akimbo - shave their hair - no pubes - like a plucked chicken...’’, sung out of tune with a bodhran[Irish drum]. There was a 13 year old girl with her parents near the front.

What with him and then me and my condoms, I shouldn’t think they’ll be coming back

...In security, I went through explaining and joking about my cardboard-tube double-bass and I could see the frame of my condom-harp causing concern in the X-ray. From 10 metres away I yelled out (by way of reassurance):’’It’s just my condom-harp.’’ They took my bag to pieces and checked, in particular, my harp for - radioactivity ? (‘’No, drugs and explosives, sir.’’) I’d got the harp out to show him its construction, saying :’’Yes, I play ‘The Blue Danube’ on it , you know.’’ He said his head was ‘too full of things’(?) On the flight I was told I couldn’t go into the lavatory because it was ‘possessed’.

[Return flight, 2 days later ] X-ray check at Tegel airport required me to show my condom harp again. Bloke just behind me said :’’Did you fly out on Sunday? - I saw it then, I don’t think I’ve ever flown once with a condom-harp, let  alone twice.’’...

  The 2nd 'serious' CD is now complete and available. It's called ''Serious Stuff'' (similar to ''no messing about'') and I've converted   two of my 'back catalogue' vinyl albums to CD. For details see the merch page.

I'm currently working on Guitar music books to go with the 2 serious CDs. These will be in standard notation plus TAB.

Amazing.