Glastonbury weekend

Well, what a varied weekend. We started on the Thursday at the Cheese & Grain in Somerset as a warm-up gig. It went well enough but we had a lot of problems with the sound on stage & (for us) it was hard going. After the show it was back to a local hotel to sleep.

The next day we started fairly early, dropped off most of the cars at the farm & travelled down to Glastonbury. What a massive site. It took a while to get our initial passes & get to the backstage area, then longer to get our dressing room passes & meal tickets, then it was the normal wait in sweltering conditions. At least (for once) it wasn’t chucking it down. On to the stage. At least it wasn’t as hot up there. It seemed to be full up & the audience appeared to enjoy the show as much as we did. I saw at least one raven flag in the audience. At last we’ve played Glastonbury & I hope we’ll do it again pretty soon. What a great time.

After we’d had some food & drink it was back to the farm to pick up the cars & then straight to Gatwick for a few drinks & a couple of hours kip.

The next morning I’m still trying to forget. We had to check in at about 4.00 am for our flight to Krakow, Poland. After the flight it was about 1½ hrs drive to Borek then some rest before a late show at the Easy Rider festival. We were on stage quite late & didn’t get back to the hotel ‘till the early hours on Sun.

Another early start in the morning to get back to Krakow then home. We got back at around 2.00pm & Baz & I drove up & played a charity gig in my village (both feeling pretty knackered).

As I said at the beginning, 4 totally different gigs, but what a weekend. I hope those of you who were at any of the shows enjoyed yourselves as much as we did.


Watch Peaches from Glastonbury here

Dave G/24th July 2010

Steadman gallery pics Ava Rave

Glasto crowd pic Sil W

A Busy Month: Festival Season

I’m just home and chilling now after a crazy few weeks in the black tourbus…

The whole thing started for me on June 21st when I did a radio interview for Glastonbury radio at 11am then drove the 325 miles to Somerset, arriving early evening. We rehearsed the sets for the up and coming gigs the next day and after the ubiquitous visit to Tuckers Grave I had an early night ready for a bit of messing about with a new effects board I have the next day.

Wednesday out of the way we then headed in to Frome for a soundcheck at the Cheese and Grain on Thursday afternoon, and to lend our support to a project involving legendary English satirical cartoonist Ralph Steadman. The idea behind it all is that he produces a piece of art and then selected people who see it compose a musical framework for it according to how it makes them feel…and we’re among the judges. He also ‘defaced’ a photo of us in his own inimitable style which was interesting, and after a bottle of the local cider we headed across to the venue which was literally next door.

It’s always bittersweet for me personally going back to Frome as I lived there for 4 years and have many memories of the place. As we approached the gig there were a few flying around my brain but they were soon wiped away as we started to soundcheck and get the feel of the place…The stage was rickety, the P.A.was too small and everything was so loud it was hard to distinguish practically anything. Generally when the crowd gets in the sound smoothes out with the effect of all the bodies in there, but this gig (sold out for months)proved to be very hard work and none of us were pleased with it to say the least…personally it’s probably the roughest show I’ve done since becoming a 4 piece again in 2006,but all the travelling fans were once again in great form and as always gave us great heart...and I guess it served it’s purpose in ironing out then wrinkles for what was to come…

The next day was one of those days that you don’t want to end. As we approached the site at Glastonbury I was told it would be some spectacle and I wasn’t disappointed. As a ‘Glasters virgin’ it was something to behold, resembling a medium sized town with the biggest fence you’ve ever seen around it…and with flags flying, masts and thousands of tents it could have been a medieval siege. After the rigmarole of checking in (which involves a girl personally reaching into the car and placing a wristband on everybody present)and being directed to the correct area, we settled down to wait, literally not knowing what to expect. The weather was a perfect English summers day and we were told there were a few folk out front who’d turned out to see us…we weren’t expecting the roar of the 70,000 who were waiting when we walked out to the Waltz. After that everything was just a blur and before we knew it, our hour was up and we were leaving the stage, sweaty and very happy…I can’t recall too much about it apart from the fact that we all played really well, Jet particularly being on great form and seemingly the whole field joining in on the chorus of Always the Sun. We’d have loved to have hung around to soak up some of the post gig shenanigans and catch up with a couple of other bands but alas we had to leave to drive to Gatwick for a 6 o’clock flight the next morning to a gig in Krakow, Poland…up at 3.30…oh man that was a leveller.

Back from an ok show in Poland I have 1 day at home to get ready for the next jaunt.

This journey starts for me on Tuesday the 6th July as I fly down to Stansted in the evening for a Wednesday afternoon flight to Bratislava in Slovakia for a festival date on Thurs the 8th.

The Pohoda Festival is a relatively new gig and is attracting a lot of interest and bands year by year as it grows. The promoter for this gig has re-arranged everything a day early especially for us to play…he’s a big fan…

It’s in a beautiful part of Europe roughly an hour from Vienna and is an area I’m not familiar with, never having been here before. Around 6 o’clock JJ and myself go out for a stroll and find ourselves on top of a hill in a bar overlooking the town of Trencin, which is about 100km from Bratislava itself…and what a beautiful place it is…a huge castle surrounded by rolling hills and small mountains with steep cobbled streets .We have a light ale and take in the vista…beautiful.

We arrive at the gig around 10.30 being the headliners on this particular day, and are pleasantly surprised to find 10,000 kids in a field going absolutely nuts for a band many of them won’t have heard of, but they treat us very well and a great time is had by all…The stage is lovely and the sound and lighting systems are great…We hear that western music and many other cultural movements have only been allowed to this part of the old Czechoslovak Republic in the relatively recent past…around 10/15 years ago…no the wonder everyone’s enjoying themselves…

A funny aside to all this occurs when the band who are on before us, a local band who themselves have been around for 30 years, decide to play ‘Hanging Around’ in their set which features one Dave Greenfield on keyboards…Dave had gone down to the gig ahead of the rest of us and had been asked onstage to play…apparently the crew heard the song, recognised the keys, went down to the stage and there Dave was with a brandy and a shit eating grin…and they said it was weird to see him onstage with another band…I’ll bet it was…(You can watch the video here )

We get back to the hotel and retire early ready for the flight to Dublin the next morning which, of course, is an early flight…I’m amazed to see the amount of people who want to fly to Dublin from Bratislava at 9 o’clock on a Friday morning…the plane is packed but it’s a relatively short flight and we’re in the sanctuary of our hotel by noon UK time…After a siesta we have a few beers in the bar with the crew in the evening and head to bed.

The next day we’re opening proceedings on the main stage at Oxegen which is held at Punchestown Racecourse, about 45 mins drive from the city. The weather is not playing the game today and it’s pissing down as we arrive onsite. We played here 2 years ago and I start to remember the layout as we approach the dressing room/catering/artist area which is in the main grandstand building.

It truly is an awful day and as we wait behind the stage at 2 o’clock to start we literally do wonder if anyone will be there. We’re pleasantly surprised to find a good few hundred wet punters on the barrier, and as we start we can see hundreds more streaming across the fields like little columns of ants to see us…We end a pretty good set 45 minutes later in front of around 10,000 which makes us happy, and after a bite in the catering area (the food here is fantastic…it was the last time too) JJ and I do a radio interview with a guy who’s patiently waited for us to finish eating, and it turns out to be one of the highlights of the day…the guy is seriously funny and asks intelligent, humorous questions with little regard for radio etiquette, effing and blinding all over the place and taking the piss out of the powers that be who are all milling around watching and listening…he begs us to try to get back and play Ireland more often and we say we’ll try…top man…Then we drive to Dublin airport and get an early evening flight to Edinburgh ready for tomorrows’ appearance at T in the Park.

Jet’s joining us for this one, not having made the trips to Slovakia and Dublin, and he’s the first person I see as I step out the hotel in Edinburgh on Sunday morning…he’s looking fresh and well up for it and we head off to the site, which again is about 45 mins drive, in a convoy. Again the weather is dreadful and as we sit in our cabin we can hear the rain bouncing off the roof…here we go again.

In the next cabin are Skunk Anasie, and Mark the drummer is an old mate of mine from the days when he was with rock band Little Angels and I was still with Smalltown Heroes…I haven’t seen him for about 15 years so we shoot the breeze for a while and then it’s time to play…This time the crowd is much bigger from the off and we play to around 20,000 which, for a Sunday morning in the pissing rain, is quite an achievement…and the most surreal moment I can remember for as long time happens when we play Always the Sun…as if on cue, right at the 1st chorus, like someone switching a light on, with 20,000 punters singing with us…the clouds parted and the sun came out…and the roar from the crowd made all 4 of us grin like Cheshire cats…truly bizarre but amazing.

I thought about that a lot on my way home on the train back to Newcastle the next day…a fitting end to a couple of weeks of madness…as always thanks must go to our intrepid crew who made the impossible possible and Gary our TM who kept us all sane…thanks boys…see you all soon.

BAZ / 21st July 2010

All pics Ava Rave

Triumphs that pass in the night

I was on the Triumph Scrambler, on my way to see my son Jeremy's band for the first time. He's the drummer and the band are called Console Wars. I turn left off Marylebone road up towards Swiss Cottage. Just as I turn another Triumph, this time a black Bonneville, turns also and we both stop at the next set of traffic lights. We both look at each others' bikes and the rider of the Bonnie who is not wearing a full face helmet, unlike myself, says "Nice bike mate". I reply something like "Yours too mate".

The lights change and we move on. I think I know that face and by the next set of traffic lights think I know who it is. We stop and I turn to him and say "Is your name Paul?"

He says "Yes?" a bit enquiringly.

"Paul Simonon?"

"Yes"

"Jean-jacques Burnel"

" I know you!"

"Yes indeed. I'm glad to see you are riding a Triumph" I say.

He says "Yeah but I preferred it when they had kickstarts"

I say "Yes, but they are more reliable now".

We shake hands and then the traffic lights change and we're off, he toward Primrose Hill and me towards Finsbury park.

It's taken us 34 years to shake hands.

JJB 12th June 2010

Bottom photo Dom P

MOJO Awards 2010

I met Julien Temple last night at the Mojo Awards. I was asked to present him and Wilko Johnson with an award for "Oil City Confidential", a documentary that he made on Dr Feelgood. I have to say I had the the chance to see this film a few weeks ago on BBC4 and I found it amazing. It was equally amazing to meet up with Wilko after so many years.

I shared a flat with him in 1977 and had an amazing time but our stay there ended when a girl who also rented a room there got raped by five men. We suddenly felt it was inappropriate to stay any longer and the place was then taken up by Billy Idol and Steve Strange and then Motorhead. This was the basis for the song 5 minutes. For a few seconds Wilko and I were completely oblivious to the large crowd whilst we hugged like the long lost friends we were. I thought it rather appropriate that Wilko was there on that day, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Howlin Wolf. When the Feelgoods were in their prime we called their music RnB. Rhythm and blues. Nothing like what they are calling by the same name now.

On the same table as me was Peter Hamill who was at the Rainbow gigs in Hugh's absence. Also Jean-Michel Jarre who was very courteous and complimentary about the Stranglers. Although he was also complimentary about my French, I was woefully aware that I have an English accent when I speak it! Opposite me on the table was a geezer called Jarvis Cocker who blanked me for the whole dinner and to my right a bloke from the US, Anthony Hegarty who is a singer in a band called Anthony and the Johnsons and who introduced me to his friend, Mervyn. He seemed to attract people such as Rufus Wainwright and Marc Almond who is a guy who once moved hotels when he learned we were staying in the same hotel because we were scary!

Funnily enough when I was backstage being photographed with Mr Temple he informed me that he had been at the same school as Hugh Cornwell, and they used to squirt ink at him because he was a prefect and, apparently, a real c**t. I said nothing........

JJB 11th June 2010

Photos of JJ on the night can be found here

Some more have also been posted here

The Daphne Du Maurier Festival of Arts & Literature

To continue with my nautical theme, if ever so slightly, a word about the Fowey outing, (the locals call it "Foy"). Although it is no more then a stone’s throw or two from the sea on one side, it is more famously perched on the banks of the river Fowey, as it begins meandering from what is actually the English Channel; but for a few score miles to the west where it becomes the full blown Atlantic; and then on northwards towards Bodmin Moor, petering out at the foot of Brown Willy, the famously desolate peak which itself forms one of the most prominent features of that mystical plateau. Almost exactly due east from it’s summit, you can see ‘Jamaica Inn’, of book and movie fame, on a clear day.

About thirty miles west of Fowey, on the Helford river, is Frenchman’s Creek, the location and title of another novel and movie.

Some three miles west of Fowey lies ‘Menabilly’, re-created in her novel ‘Rebecca’, as ‘Manderley’, (surely, far more romantic) this fine and ancient house was once the home of Daphne Du Maurier. In 1969, she moved a mile or so into another house named ‘Kilmarth’ where she spent the rest of her life and which characteristically she went on to immortalize in another novel, ‘The House on the Strand’.
This then, with all of it’s geographical detail, is clearly DDM territory. Drawing on early inspiration, DDM went on to create a host of characters and placed them in and around the surrounding countryside -she knew and loved - as she famously penned her way into international literary stardom.

No small wonder then, that this highly regarded festival of art and literature is so named. Mis-described by some, as both "highbrow" and "stuffy", it has surely now been wrested from it’s sometime reputation by the appearance of my colleagues and I. Not that this appearance should have been anything other than enlightening to a DDM Fest audience, but anyone reading this is probably only too well aware of our own vicissitudes.


This was the one, NOT, to be missed. Not only the preserve of British art and culture at some of it’s very best, but at it’s location on that particular day, Friday 21st May 2010, it was at it’s Mediterranean-like finest. With an unusually warm if not, scorching hot day, the charm of one of England’s most delightful regions - at any time of the year - and the sub-tropical fauna which is able to survive in the area due to it’s un-British-like weather, it was for us, more akin to leisure than work.

Probably not the place however, for those who prefer the dark sudor of the pub or night club, or the more typical and often bland and even vulgar at times, British seaside resort. This was a well organized, attended, and interesting festival, distinguished from most by it’s uniqueness. The gig itself was as kick-ass as any you might expect from your MIB and it had the added feature of excellent acoustics within the "tent" erected for the occasion. Situated atop the western side of the Fowey gorge, views from the venue, with it’s vistas of the town, are truly awesome as are those - from a suitable vantage point - of the nearby ports of Polperro and Mevagissey to the near east and west, all steeped in the culture of the rich Cornish fishing tradition.

Yes, this was a great day out, the best in the west since the demise of the Cornish Colosseum, and a rare opportunity for the locals to get some Strangling in, but at least they can sleep at night secure in the knowledge that if they haven’t got us or you, most of the time, they do at least have Cornwall, or as Baz put it, Paradise!

Jet Black - May 2010

All photos copyright Ava Rave 2010

Book talk

Hi Mark - you are right that an update for the book is perhaps overdue. Dr D B has certainly been considering this for some time now and my understanding, is that he needs to decide what exactly he wants to write, and then do a deal with a publisher etc., etc. More than that, I can’t reliably say. Like all these things, I won’t have any real news, until I have some real news! Which brings me to some further ‘book’ news. There are a number of book projects in the pipeline at present, but like the one you are writing about, I won’t have any real news, until I have some real news! So, what more can I say but watch these pages where you will find the real story, as soon as it becomes available. I hope this will tide your interest over until that moment. Cheers - jb

Paris and Leuven

Hi folks...
just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the fun that was had in Paris and Leuven...the Wonky bus never fails eh? I was very surprised to have almost the entire audience at the Bataclan sing happy birthday to me (at the instigation of the Brits of course), and at the reception you all gave me when i came out later for the pics...never been hoisted on the shoulders of a crowd before...felt like Bobby Moore! Thanks to you all for making it a laugh and there's nowhere else i'd have rather been for my birthday but Paree...save for an absent friend or two it was perfect...
The next day in Leuven was probably most memorable for the stage invasion at the end of the gig...some people never grow up...and more power to 'em...We've almost always turned a blind eye to the antics of the possessed, but when it interferes with what we do directly that's a different matter and the whole thing was marred, for me anyway, by the guy that grabbed my mikestand and smacked me in the teeth...i think the you tube footage shows it clearly, and he got a couple of good kicks for his trouble which i regret, but get too close and that's what you get...you know who you are, and i do apologise, but believe me i'd do it again in a heartbeat...these teeth weren't cheap...Hope to see you all in Cornwall...keep smiling...