Respecting your roots

After my last little moan I thought I really ought to write about something a little more positive.

I was reminded that we all need to not take what we DO have for granted when I walked past one of our local pubs recently. It’s a venue that The Mudheads have refrained from playing as it would probably end up being a little more hassle that its worth (yup, it’s a rough house).

A poster in the window told us that the band performing that weekend was ‘The Glitter Band’. Yes, THAT Glitter Band.

Talk about your boss dropping you RIGHT in it. I admire their courage for hanging onto the name. Old Gary’s crimes weren’t theirs but you know how the British like to hang people on association.

Mind you here was a good example of treating people well on the way up, because sometimes you don’t even get the time to flap your arms on the way back down.

The last time I saw the Glitter Band was with Mr Glitter himself performing to a thousand or so students at Fresher’s week at Bristol UNI. Now here they were playing in a pub that even I wouldn’t play in.

But hey, massive respect to them for sticking with it.

Now, there is one venue that we The Mudheads call home. Not that we will ever become the Rock Gods we dream of being, but even if we did, we would still play here, even if it meant playing under an assumed name because of the crush that would be caused by adoring fans (I can dream, I can dream).

That venue is The Bunch of Grapes situated in the dead centre of Bristol.

The Grapes and I have history, and it has a secure place in my heart.

Firstly, three generations of Loader have now played there if legend is to be believed.

My father, that would be Aaron’s granddad, played jazz piano there when he was a teenager (not that he claims to remember doing so…but I suspect he did). I play there now, as of course does junior.

I used to go there a lot with Bassbin when we were teenagers. Not because the beer was great, but in the vain hope of meeting somebody famous. You see the Grapes is right next door to the Bristol Hippodrome and it used to be the favourite haunt of every star that graced the boards there.

Not that they did once me and Bassbin started going there of course, but you know what kids are like, we didn’t give up hope.
Anyway, many years passed and Aaron and I who were performing as a duo at this point managed to persuade the music promoter there (Alfie Kingston) to give us a 20 minute show case at the beginning of an acoustic evening.

We went mental…I don’t think that they knew what hit them.

We were subsequently booked again on the spot, this time a little higher up the running order. The next time we played we were again re-booked with the headline spot at the end. Not because we were better than the other acts mind you, it was just that nobody would follow us. A trend that has followed us “ I ain’t following that bunch of ruddy nutters”.

Alfie decided that he would try his hand at putting on electric nights and we pulled in CJ who had already begun playing for our acoustic set up and persuaded Alfie to give us a shot.

This was the very first gig of The Mudheads as it is now.

We only got to play for about 20 minutes as the opening band went well over there allotted time and so we got cut short.

The audience was almost non existent apart from one man of distinction. Bassbin. He had been in so many bands with me before this and now he was encouraging me to go for it again.

Well one thing led to another and we became one of the Grapes most requested bands, and we became very fond of the place.

Run by two ladies, who shall we say, ‘wear comfortable shoes’, they always made us feel at home and encourage us to perform to the best of our ability.

Of course being a city centre pub you get all sorts in there. Like the guy who stood infront of the packed crowd (and us) and got his dick out, confident in his drunken knowledge that every girl in the building would REALLY want to see it.

The guy that insisted on telling me at length about his ‘Barrel Organ’ collection.

Girls that are so hammered that you spend most of the gig praying that they will keep their clothes on (well, I am in the band with my son after all).

And a barman that has so many tattoos and piercings he made the cast of Mad Max 2 look like a bunch of fairies, wandering around proudly in his Mudheads t-shirt.

Sadly, like so many music pubs, the attendance began to dwindle and the landladies could no longer shell out good money on bands that couldn’t fill the place (which was sadly becoming most of us).

We haven’t played there for over a year now. That is until this Christmas…hoorah!

We really do hope that it won’t be for the last time, but The Mudheads will be returning for a proper right royal Christmas bash on the 20th December 08…and yes, we are REALLY looking forward to it!

I wonder if MY grandchildren will get the opportunity to play there.