Back to life, back to reality

I am beginning to run out of excuses for having not blogged for nearly four months.

I do actually have two extremely good reasons. The first being that my wrists, a vital component in the world of the budding rock star as they are required to thrash their ‘instrument of fame- to quote Mott The Hoople’, packed up on me.

Old and worn out fart that I am I managed in the space of just a few short months to succumb to the ravages of 35 years of constant guitar based mistreatment and develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Tendinitis and Tennis Elbow (how I will never know as I haven’t played Tennis competitively in my life).

These three ailments combined left it impossible to play my guitar, difficult to type and a few other more mundane tasks that are probably best not discussed in these pages.

Not being able to play has been a cross that I have found extremely difficult to bear and my enforced abstinence has left me feeling uncreative and maudlin as well as a miserable old git into the bargain.

The second reason, which dovetailed nicely in to the above temporary disability, was having been stupid enough to have agreed to go onto a management secondment for seven months.

Now a wannabie rock star like myself does not take well to the responsibility of management as it goes against every rebellious and egocentric instinct I might have.. Besides I am used to the adoring attention of the female of the species (cough) and was not used to being constantly harangued by about 45 of them for every conceivable complaint they had. To put it bluntly I have had seven months of ear ache. I can assure you that this is by no means a sexist observation as I can guarantee you that had there been a smattering of blokes amongst them; their level of objecting would probably have been louder and more heated than that of the ladies in my charge. This did nothing to add to the already declining flow of creative juices

However; all excuses aside, I have had more needles stuck in me than Keith Richards arms and the wrists appear to be on the mend and I have forsaken the heady life of top floor executive comfort and am eager to get back to straight forward ‘rock & roll’, ‘keeping it real’ and generally making a pratt of myself for the edification of the British public.

With this, I am hoping that there will be a plethora of tales to tell.

The first being…….a new album has been released!!!!!

But you’ll have to wait until next week to hear about that one.

Laters dudes.

Oh come on!!!!

The trouble with putting shows all about hard working bands on television or in the movies is you invariably get scenes where the band arrives with most of their gear on the back of a scooter and having literally ‘thrown’ their kit in the general location of the stage, rock into a finely produced set of songs that U2 would have been envious of.

Normally these kinds of events take place at the end of some Disney movie or other and leave the viewer truly believing that ‘a band can actually fly’.

What people fail to take into account is that it’s ‘made up’. That it has all the artistic reality of Dumbo and that it doesn’t actually happen this way.

Firstly in no way in this world or the next does anything sound as tight and as crisp and more importantly in tune as do the songs in these movies. It just doesn’t happen like that. Even if you do get to see a genuine live performance on TV it has had every bum note, guitar gaff, missed beat and mistake finally and carefully produced out of it. A great example of what happens if this hasn’t happened was the recent filming of Bon Jovi playing live at Hyde parks London Calling. This was not doctored in any way and what you saw is what the crowd in London got. Even my good lady who is an ardent Bon Jovi fan said “bilge he’s singing flat isn’t he”. This isn’t reflection on the musicianship of artistes it’s just life.

The second reality check and the most pertinent to this tale is at no point do the band turn up with all their equipment in a shopping trolley and are ready to play in four minutes flat.

The Mudheads have a horse box, which is enormous, black and has frightened the dickens out of several motorists following the band on many occasions. CJ found it hilarious to paint the insignia “Have a Nice Day” on the back of it which would be the last thing that the terrified driver would see as this wheel crazy leviathan veered wildly and ran them off the road.

This horse box is so loaded with equipment that we have snapped the axel on it several times and have had to fit a new fly wheel that could just about lift a tank.

To unload said horse box, carry approximately 2 ½ ton of electrical kit into a venue and then set it all up ready for action, even with a finely tuned work force like ours (cough) takes a minimum of two hours.

So when we are faced with the prospect of undertaking a benefit type event, in the outdoors, in what transpired was heavy rain and they want us to perform for 15 minutes as everybody is leaving I think the expression is ‘”get lost”.

Honestly where do people get their ideas from. Walt Disney’s company have a lot to answer for.

It had to be the drummer

Now I am not going to be disparaging or needlessly rude about anyone, but it does have to be said that if there is ever anybody in a band that seems to break wind as a form of artistic expression then it has to be the drummer.

CJ is a genuine virtuoso at this.

It could be because of his fondness for spicy food. It could be that he excels at growing his own vegetables and has a healthy level of fibre in his diet.

What ever the reason, in every school class, there was a kid that sat at the back with a self satisfied grin on his face as everybody else was hanging out of the windows. I genuinely believe that CJ was our man on the ground in those situations.

This has been a long standing issue for the band, especially when we were locked in the studio together recording our first album.

When you are locked in an air tight, sound tight, generally claustrophobic space and CJ decides to ‘relieve’ himself of built up pressure you have two choices, die, or invent ever creative ways to subdue the gaseous beast that had been released.

It was on this occasion when yet another ‘take’ had been abandoned and the guitarist, Matt and I had gone a strange shade of green that our producer introduced us to the concept of the candle.

Candles were lit in the studio not in order to induce a new aged ambience but as a means to ‘eat’ the methane gas that was emanating from the drum booth.

Keep this thought in mind.

Over the years we have not been plagued by this ‘creative’ expression too badly although it is always wise to have one finger poised in readiness over the window button in the car on the way to a gig.

Performing in a myriad of pubs, clubs and bars had not been a problem as anything CJ could produce was soundly disguised by cigarette smoke. This of course changed dramatically with the introduction of the smoking ban and we suddenly realised that our erstwhile drummer was not alone with half the cliental ‘farting’ for England. To be honest the average Saturday nights public house smells more like a packet of dry roasted peanuts.

At least we have a small bank of electric fans to blow anything acrid or noxious back at the drum kit.

In our practice room we are not so fortunate and I knew we were in trouble when CJ proudly announced that he’d had a particularly fiery and spicy curry for lunch.
An hour into the practice all went south when CJ could not contain himself any longer and ‘let rip’.

As the singer I have to gulp in more air than the other two. This quickly became a distinct disadvantage as the result of CJ’s lunch time frailty caught me soundly in the back of the throat. I nearly introduced them to what I’d had for tea at the moment as I gagged violently into the microphone.

Even CJ got caught violently off guard within the full force of his own creation and nearly fell back off his kit.

Knowing that this could quite probably put a crimp on the whole evenings work he threw open the sliding doors and disappeared into the labyrinth that best describes his garage.

He returned with what could best described as a flame thrower.

As a sheet of flame shot out of the end of the metal rod and canister he held ominously in his grip into the room where Aaron and I stood, memories of those idiots you see on Youtube who seems to think that girls are thoroughly impressed by somebody who can actually light their own farts came to mind. Methane gas is highly flammable as far as I can remember.

Our little practice room has an emphasis on small and Aaron and I had no place to hide and we had visions of the opening scene of Die Hard 3 being re-enacted in Bristol.

Thankfully, nothing exploded but we were left with the gaseous stench of the fuel that had produced the flame in the first place.

It just had to be the drummer.

I am officially getting old!!

I am officially getting old!!

I don’t mean in terms of advancing years (although it would be helpful if they too could slow down a little). No I mean in terms of the things I don’t understand.

This is a musical blog entry but on a slightly different vein.

I got a call from my guitarist son Aaron asking what I would be doing on this coming Thursdays tea time. I am always suspicious of this question from either of my two offspring as it invariably results in me having to drive them somewhere.

This time it was not a transportation request but something of a more interesting nature.

His wife, my daughter-in-law, is a primary school teacher (that’s kids up the age of 11 yrs if you are reading this from outside of the UK) and they were due to hold their annual leavers disco on that Thursday.

They had sadly received a call from the grieving widow of the chap that normally did the disco for them who had reportedly and rather tragically had a heart attack and had dropped down dead whilst on holiday. I wondered why they had used the services of such an elderly gentlemen any way for entertaining young un’s when I was informed that he was exactly the same age as me….gulp!

Aaron phoned and asked if I could pull the bands PA and lights together so that a disco could still go ahead. I enquired if he would like me to do it with him. His response let the colour fall from my face when he said “no, not me, I’m working….you”.

Now, like most people I have always fancied being a radio DJ. I even signed up to be one on hospital radio in Poole, Dorset, but they closed the station the week before I was due to go on air (some would say a lucky escape from the already suffering patients).

The idea of spinning the discs whilst indulging in some witty but none the less gentle banter has always appealed to me. I have always enjoyed my stints of being interviewed and performing on radio.

However; running a school disco for about 60 ten to eleven year olds was an entirely different prospect indeed.

You have to remember that these kids were now the biggest in their school. They were way too old for this place now and they knew it. Cocky beyond reason they would strut around the place as if they owned it and in their pre-adolescent minds…they did. The only solace for the weary battled fatigued teaching staff struggling to maintain control was that these Billy and Belinda ‘know-it-alls’ in just under two months time would once again be the smallest kids in another school and would have those smug expressions whipped clean off their faces.

Anyway, it was for these little urchins that I was being asked to provide an evenings entertainment.

I’m not too proud to admit it but I panicked.

What did I do when I am in similar situations…..I called CJ that’s what I did.
Primarily I phoned him to see if he could drag our kit out for me to collect and to ask him for a few suggestions (he has school aged daughters one who is also leaving primary school so in his role on the PTA he has himself provided several discos).

I have always maintained that CJ is a diamond geezer and one of the most helpful people I know but this time my gratitude went onto a new plain of thought when he chirped up. “Tell you what, I’ll come and do it with you”.

This was going to be a new experience for me I can tell you.

Thursday arrived and CJ and I met down by the school (in case anybody out there is wondering both CJ and I are in receipt of CRB certificates in relation to our employment….we are considered ‘safe’ to work with children. Besides, there were teachers everywhere. Even so it didn’t stop a growing sense of dread building in the pit of my stomach.)

It was here that the first incidence of my aging comprehension had its first bite of the cherry.

Bearing in mind that we are talking about children here. Little un’s….kids that still perhaps wearing Barbie Doll/Action Man or High School Musical pyjamas to bed, I was floored when a whole fleet of stretch Limousines turned up and out poured a throng of giggling school girls dressed like they were at the opening night of the Oscars.

What the hell was all that about???

Now I know that the fascination for the American High School leaver’s ball has entered our shores, perhaps a couple of decades ago. And I know that this has attracted the use of Limos for the arrival.

But 11 year olds?....oh come on!!!

Shaking my head in despair we decanted the PA and lights in to the school hall and prepared to…’rock’!

Now the modern disco is really a thing of beauty as no longer does the poor struggling DJ have to load in massive speakers and case upon case of Vinyl records or CD’s (if you are that little bit younger).

Nowadays, the speakers are far more efficient and smaller in size and both of us carried in our entire record collection on a couple of Ipods and a laptop computer (God Bless the inventor of Itunes).

I was all for downloading the last three editions of ‘Now that’s what I call Music’ but CJ promised me that he had it covered.

And then THEY arrived.

I love the difference in the maturity of boys and girls (something my wife insists never changes).

The boys all bounced in, decked out in sports clothes with perhaps the initial attempts of spiking their hair up…..just a small nod towards the fact that give it two or three years and they would be thirteen and it would begin….bring it on.
The girls however; were a completely different kettle of fish.

Many of them clearly wanted to be 19 yrs and dressed as such. I didn’t know where to look……I bet their dad’s didn’t see them going out like that. Why can’t kids just be kids??

Ah well, nobody else seemed to be bothered by it and so I elected to get on with the job in hand.

This is really where I left reality.
The kids started to pour up and ask for their favourite tunes….all of which were a total mystery to me. I hadn’t heard of one of em!!

Perhaps if I listened a little less to Classic FM and Planet Rock and little more to Radio One and Heart FM I might have a little bit of inkling as to what they were asking for.

As it was I felt like I was working on the reception of a specialist Emporium for the more discerning weirdo!!

“Do you have any S&M”?

“You can’t ask for that!! You’re 10 years old!

“It’s a song by Rihanna”

“Is it?.........whose Rihanna?”

The boys kept asking for a track by a band called LMFAO. CJ had to explain to me that this in fact stood for ‘Laugh my ****** ******** off’ (you can fill in the blanks) I was stunned.

When I was 10 years old we had ‘Gimme Dat Ting” and “Bridge over troubled water” for heavens sake.

The funniest thing was being terrorised by a mini Emo in the making.

At the beginning of the evening this sullen rather rotund child stormed up to us with her arm outstretched clutching some sort of dance CD. I asked her if she wanted us to play a track off of it. She replied “No, all of it” and stalked off.

Now neither CJ and I had any idea of what any of it was on the CD and we were not about to take any chances given that the kids were already ‘getting down’ to S&M, it could have been wall to wall sex for all we knew. So we stuck it to one side in the blind hope that said child didn’t notice.

She did!

You’ve heard the expression ‘if looks could kill’….well I got one of those…..it withered me where I stood. 28 years of marriage and I have done some stupid things in my time, but I have NEVER had a look like that from my beloved…..eech! I’m surprised I could sleep that night.

However; taking CJ was the coup of the century. He played song after song after song that the kids loved….I hadn’t heard of one of them.

They would have eaten me alive if I had gone on my own. I’d considered playing a song from the Wombles, you know, just for a laugh, and of course I would have had to have put a bit of Status Quo in there.
Thankfully the evening was a short one, which was just as well, as by the time I got home I was in desperate need of a large glass of wine. My level of respect for my daughter-in-law and her colleagues has risen through the roof.

CJ was a proper trooper and I was once again utterly grateful that he had saved my back side.

However; in the words of the immortal Terry Wogan

“Is it me”

Bob the Builder - "Can we fix it? yes we can".

I have just developed a new and deeper appreciation of that much maligned species called the ‘Roadie’.

This was caused by the experiencing of two completely diametrically opposed events that took place within the space of the same week for myself and Mrs RG.

The first was our annual outing to see the American rock stalwarts Bon Jovi at the Bristol City Football club stadium.

True it was only five minutes ago that I was writing exuberantly about our experience at the O2 in London (it was in fact exactly 12 months ago) but if Mrs RG doesn’t get the annual fix she may cast a wander ear to other sources of musical entertainment, and as there is some unbelievable tripe out there I for one rejoice that at least the recipients of her audible interest are in fact blindingly good song smiths.

However; to the point. Bon Jovi tend to favour big (I and by that I mean HUGE) arenas in order to cast their musical net as widely as they can to as many people as possible.

With this in mind, in order that those in the ‘cheap seats’ can actually see a show the tour have remarkably large stages and even bigger video screens.

Apparently, if my information is correct, Bon Jovi travel with two complete set ups so they can move from town to town every single night. So if they are performing in say Bristol they can then play again in Manchester the following night. And believe me, that is no mean feat.

Those stages are absolutely enormous.

What you are basically getting is a team of ‘Roadies’ descending on a stadium perhaps on the night before the gig and have the whole place rigged, set up and live by about mid afternoon the following day. Then at about 10 or 11pm, the whole lot comes down, is packed up and off to another arena or stadium.

I am extremely impressed and the reason for that was brought home rather vividly at the end of that week.

To set the scene.

Once upon a time I was a Boy Scout. Mrs RG in turn used to be a Girl Guide. As part of our childhood uniformed activities we would camp in tents. This was never as cheery a ‘singing round the camp fire’ experience as you mind imagine. Myself, Quicksketch and Bassbin were once sent on a patrol leaders camp in order to make us into ‘men’ and enlightened leaders. What actually happened was myself and Bassbin nearly got sent home for fighting at the tender age of 10 or 11 over, believe it or not, a woggle (that was the plastic thing that held your neckerchief together and was the colour of your troop, or Six as they were called).

We were tired, fed up and cold and getting extremely grumpy and tetchy with each other. I have no idea what caused the fracas but BB wrenched my woggle from my throat and threw it definitely to the ground. I instantly demand that he pick it up immediately or I would rearrange his charming and boyish good looks. He of course fully aware that mobile phones were not to be invented for at least another 25 years or so knew that I had no way of contacting my lawyer told me to ‘Sod off, and to pick it up myself”.

Of course the gauntlet had been thrown (well, the woggle any way), honour had to be satisfied and with that punches were thrown.

Neither of us were or are men of violence (BB went onto be a Policeman and having left the force I was informed by one of his former colleagues that he was ‘way to nice a bloke to be old bill’ something I feel that he should be proud of) and so the air of aggression was short lived and probably more akin to a couple of squabbling girl guides.

The fight was short however not because we were not fully committed. No, the rise in temper was at least keeping us warm, unfortunately the fact was that we were caught in full ‘Fight Club’ mode my Baloo (it’s probably best not to ask but all the Cub scout leaders were named after characters from the Jungle Book). Anyway, the first rule of Fight Club is never to talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is don’t get caught fighting by Baloo.

He was not happy and we both had our ears soundly bent on how we had brought shame and ignominy to our troop and only apologising to each other and shaking hands prevented us from being sent home to our parents under a cloud of disgrace and further punishment.

The point of this little aside is that my childhood experiences have taught me that I do not under any circumstances ‘do’ camping. If it doesn’t have air conditioning, a flushable toilet and a shower I ain’t interested.

Back in the day of a more flourishing rock career I would wave the fee for festivals that I performed at as long as I was housed in a decent hotel somewhere close. I hate festival camping even more than Scout camps.

However; as you are all aware we are in the grip of a global economic down turn and times are to say the least, hard.

So now that that the sprogs have flown the nest myself and Mrs RG decided that we would dip our toes back into the ‘camping’ game. Besides ‘woggles are a thing of the past and such things as ‘electric hook ups’ exist enabling the use of such luxuries as heaters, microwaves and laptop computers.

Now this is where my new found appreciation of the remarkable skill of the Roadie comes in.

They can set up an entire stadium with stage, PA lights, screens and goodness knows what else, AND take it all back down again in just over 24 hours (that includes sleeping, eating and other necessities.).

The tent we had purchased for our big camping adventure had claimed (rather loosely I beg to proffer) that the canvass living quarters could be fully erected and habitable within 25 minutes. My response to that is ‘Horse manure’.

Two hours it took us, yes TWO hours, and that was just to get us to a point where we would be dry to unpack if it should have rained.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I long to have a crew of roadies to take care of my musical needs. I am now wondering if one them would fancy the occasional weekend job taking up and putting down our tent.

Guys (and girls) of the road crew profession. I salute you!!

Mystery Illness

“I'm a celebrity, with depression, anorexia
And a mystery illness which should make me even sexier
Celebrity, with superficial grace
Always wearing this mask, that eats the face”

From I’m a Celebrity by Martyn Joseph & Stewart Henderson

Those that read my last entry will know that I had been referred for a series of blood test because I was suffering from chronic fatigue and an overwhelming desire to eat my own body weight in chocolate.

I have now had my diagnosis and apparently I have ‘Graves’ Disease’.

Having the word ‘disease’ associated with you is never a pleasant experience, but add the word ‘Grave’ to it and I began to feel extremely uncomfortable.

This growing feeling of dread was not helped by a good friend who looked up the condition on Wikipedia and announce triumphantly that I have a condition that is normally associated with teenage girls.
This might explain my tendency to flounce and to go all duey eyed over Justin Bieber posters but it is not something that I want broadcasted abroad.
Eager to find a common link with other rock stars who may have suffered the same fate as me and find just a modicum of credibility I typed the word ‘celebrity’ with ‘Graves Disease’ into Google. I was mortified to discover that although the list was long I had hardly heard of any of them. Most had died over 150 years ago, there was an actress or two that I am sure are famous from the village they originated from, an Australian folk singer I was blissfully unaware of…and….George W Bush senior!!
Well that explains it all!!

It was suggested that in order to maintain rock & roll credibility I should lie and just say that I am suffering from the ravages of a major heroin addiction but as EVERYBODY who knows me is aware that my narcotic of choice is red and comes in a 75 cl bottle, preferably from the New World, the addiction claim probably wouldn’t wash.
I could always go down the modern celebrity approach and be extremely coy about a ‘mystery illness’. This seems to have worked well for Cheryl Cole although you can over play it like Kerry Katona and become so unemployable that you even lose your job at Iceland (if you are reading this over seas, Iceland is a frozen food retailer which specializes in selling food that is so cheap that there is probably more nutrition in the box the food is sold in than the food itself).

So I may have to take it on the chin and either keep my gob well and truly shut or admit that I have an illness that lends more to excitable teenager crushes on pubescent boy bands and prolific text messaging than it does to a man of my more distinguished years.

As long as I don’t end up looking like Keith Richard I may just get away with it.


I’m a celebrity, tousled and vivacious
I’m a celebrity, publicity voracious
I’m a celebrity, a midiocre icon
I’m adorable, especially when the mic’s onCelebrity, with a pre-nuptial arrangement
To be followed by a photo-spread estrangement
Fashionably turned out
Immaculately churned out
Rehab ripe and burned out
On a short lease destiny
Magazine confessional
Vulnerably obsessional
An emotional professional
Renowned for being me, me, me
I’m a celebrity, a surface raconteur
I’m a celebrity, RSVP’s everywhere
I’m a celebrity, attending acting classes
I’m a lap dog, a poodle for the masses
Celebrity, with injected lips that pout
I am a spiritual, with a cook-book coming out
I’m a celebrity, every word is true
I’m a celebrity, misquote me and I’ll sue
I’m a celebrity, with depression, anorexia
And a mystery illness which should make me even sexier
Celebrity, with superficial grace
Always wearing this mask, that eats the face
Fashionably turned out
Immaculately churned out
Rehab ripe and burned out
On a short lease destiny
Magazine confessional
Vulnerably obsessional
An emotional professional
Renowned for being me, me, me
Celebrity

Chemically enhanced!

Do not despair…..I will continue…..I must……I will be severally chastised by good friends if not.

What must I continue I hear you cry?.......performing in a band is pretty much the answer. Performing at all basically.

Its okay it’s not terminal. I have now discovered that my totally lethargy towards playing is in fact chemically based. No, I’m not popping anything that I am not supposed to, it’s just that I have a lack of a chemical called thyroxin in my system that has left me feeling like I have gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson and then not slept for a week.

They tell me that this particular problem is hereditary (thanks mum) but easily treatable although I will join ranks of those that have to take tablets every day for the rest of their lives.

Hopefully what I will end up is enough energy for three and a renewed passion to rock & roll. There are still many stages that need ripping up!!

You will be the first to know.

I’ll be back shortly I promise.

Laters dudes
RG