Sssssshhhh - nowt
What's been going on in Pigville did you ask? Well if you're sitting comfortably I'll get on with bringing you up to date. There's been a trickle of dates at venues new and familiar including old favourites like the Vaults at BC and Ludlow Brewery. The recent highlights for us though have been at the Jam Factory in Hereford with our old good friends Alvin and the Angry Barrels, and at Albert's Shed in Shrewsbury with Dunk Burns and Shotgun Marmalade who really blew us away. These were all originals nights which is what we'd love to able to focus more on. That though, depends on venues being confident they'll get a crowd through the door and being able to justify the bookings. There does seem to be a general reluctance amongst gig-goers to take a gamble on an unknown quantity. Understandable maybe when the purse strings are tight for the vast majority of us? If I could summon a genie to change anything to do with the live music scene it would be to change the 'play one we know' bollocks, to 'play some we don't know', and get people piling into those amazing venues that are brave enough to book original acts.
Our latest adventure was an afternoon out to the Weavers at Park Lane in Kidderminster. It's a great canal-side boozer (with Bathams!) which attracts a good crowd from 4-7 on Saturdays exactly because they provide an eclectic mix of live music and DJs. Dead chuffed to have a foot in the door at a new venue, we rocked up forewarned that there have been recent complaints from neighbours about the 'noise'. Now who the fuck buys a house near a pub/music venue and then kicks off about once-a-week 3 hours of music. Turd brains, that's who! With the poor gaffer paranoid having suffered a visit from the noise police we were asked to keep the sound as low as reasonably possible. However, the chap marching up and down the street with the noise meter was determined that whatever we tried wasn't going to crack it. JDog ended up using brushes and tapping the kick drum with ballerina slippers, and the backline was barely audible. Hilarious when I was stood on top of the drums but couldn't even hear the count-ins. Some people actually left because it was too quiet! Like the drums, we refused to be beaten and fueled by Bathams turned out three pretty decent sets, which, considering my inability to hear anything except my own horrible drone was a considerable achievement.
We've also been back in the studio at Lane's End with the marvellous Jim Murphy recording another small handful of new material. The fact that the songs are road-tested live makes recording much simpler and we're really pleased with the early results. Confidence is growing in the camp that we'll have a whole new album ready for release this coming winter.
Our next big challenge is taking on Niall Rogers and Chic head to head but more of that later!
