Other Bands – Page 20 – Ferocious Blog

Lock, stock and three smokin’ artists..

It was only back on Thursday I was preparing to head off to London town – it feels like a month ago! The day started with a phone call from Wez who had ended up in the wrong town due to a satnav mishap, soon enough that was remedied and we were hotfooting it up the M1 to Warsop to convene with Cerebus and the rest of its happy band of travellers. Soon into the journey Scott was sharing his beauty regime secrets meanwhile Ken was absorbed in a book entitled Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class by Owen Jones.

To pass the time John, Scott, Brad and I had a few rounds of rummy – I didn’t have masses of change and was running up a substantial gambling debt (okay, it was four quid..) to John before mercifully I won a game and enough cash to clear my increasing arrears. A trip to the service station saw Brad’s hat end up on the roof of the van, and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves in Camden – and doing a few laps of it to find the spot we needed to unload into Dingwalls. Mercifully it was clear so parking up wasn’t a problem ready to get the gear off the back of the van.

Of course, avoiding the glaze-eyed sauntering dawdlers wandering like a zombie procession down the pavement between the van and the venue was more of a challenge – but we’d soon got the assorted cases and boxes and instruments into Dingwalls enabling Wez to find somewhere to leave the bus until later.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 16th November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Transatlantic Doozer goodness..

Doozer McDooze fascinates me in general – he and Birdy (The Famous Artist Birdy Rose) eschew much of the trappings we succumb to in life, living like modern-day troubadours in a van working and travelling hard to fill the world with music and art. They’re lovely folk too – Doozer even wrote a song for me dedicated to my as then unborn nephew, Arlo – charting his destiny to reawaken Nottingham’s rebellious past and kick off a new generation of cheese riots. Once he is beyond toddling at least.

His music is raw, fun and generally released for a pay-what-you-think-it-is-worth on his Bandcamp page – the priority clearly being getting his music out there in recorded or gig form above and beyond trying to make a quick buck. Learning more as I do about the lot of independent musicians and artists, it’s really not a very easy industry to make money out of compared to the amount of effort it takes to organise recordings and events, not to mention the time to learn to sing and play, practice, sit and write songs.

In more recent weeks the intrepid duo crossed the Atlantic to take their show stateside – from watching their Facebook posts it looks like they’ve had an absolute blast, and a culmination of that is a live recording of Doozer’s set at Vigilstock which took place in the wonderfully named Knickerbocker Saloon in Lafayette, Indiana at the end of September. Vigilstock has been running since 1996 in memory of musician Shannon Hoon, best-known as singer for Blind Melon who tragically passed away in 1995.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 10th November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Cŵn ffyrnig ar daith yng Nghymru..

Online translations are always a risky prospect, I’ve tried a few to double-check the headline – but don’t pretend to be a Welsh speaker (much as I’d love to be!) so apologies if it’s completely nonsensical to any native Welsh speakers out there! Snotty and I had decided to make a weekend out of a trip to Swansea and travelled there on Friday evening and missed the Swindon gig, which according to Mick was an awesome evening’s entertainment.

We checked into an awesome B&B for a couple of nights, I wouldn’t normally write loads about accommodation (and I won’t write loads, don’t worry!), but The Mirador in Swansea is worth bit of a mention for its quirkiness.

A town house run by the incredibly affable Phil and Jeanette, each room there is themed on a different part of the world – there’s a Venetian room and a Parisian room (that’s two blogs on the bounce that have mentioned Parisian – what’s the odds of that?!) or in our case an Egyptian themed room, with pharaohs and Nefertiti looking down on us – it was brilliant. Should you ever find yourself travelling to Swansea then I’d heartily recommend it – breakfast was awesome too. Next job after this is to head to trip advisor and leave a nice review.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 8th November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos

A lovely ramble in DH Lawrence country..

I’ve heard people be pretty dismissive of Skiffle as a mere novelty or something not to be taken too seriously. I don’t profess to have vast experience of it, but I do know humble skiffling gave rise to the Beatles. Researching a little further I found a definition of ‘Jazz, folk or country music played by performers who use unconventional instruments such as kazoos, washboards or jugs, sometimes in combination with conventional instruments’ – which sounds fair enough.

DH Lawrence and the Vaudeville Skiffle Show fuse this, perhaps sans the jazz, with a healthy slug of Folk, Bluegrass, Americana and North Nottinghamese (I take exception to UpNorthicana as they call it, we are midlanders after all!) to create something really rather magical. I saw them performing at Splendour earlier in the year, where washboards, kazoos and a ‘skiffle boot’ nestled with a banjo, double-bass (and but for availability an absent violin) to mesmerise us with folksy bluegrassy ballads and rowdy tunes coupled with engaging crowd participation.

So it was pretty exciting when Al got in touch to offer to send me an advance copy of their forthcoming album – Sons and Lovers – to have a listen to, which is what I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks. Once I’d got it on my phone I lined it up to listen on my way to work – time enough for two run throughs since the traffic was bad. It felt a bit like a first date that had gone well – excitement, a little bit of uncertainty but a keen desire to reacquaint myself with my new beau and get to know her better.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 5th November 2015 / Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Up the wooden hill to Bedford..

The trouble with staying over after a gig and heading to the next one after the hotel boots you out is you end up in the next place ludicrously early – unless you find an awesome falconry place near your destination, which is what we did with our early afternoon. So we had entertainment from an assortment of owls, hawks, falcons and eagles to tide us over until a reasonable time to be heading into Bedford – in the absence of any owls in the Owl Sanctuary the previous night it felt like balance had been restored!

Once we headed into Bedford I followed the Sat Nav to what it thought was Greyfriars car park, but it wasn’t quite right (we discovered after paying) so moved the car to the right car park which didn’t charge after 6pm and wandered to locate the venue before repairing to the nearly Ship Inn for a drink since it was early. Who should we happen upon shortly after arrival but Mick? It’s funny how that always happens! Haha, after drinking up in the absence of serving food we nipped a few doors down for a pizza.

By the time we’d finished that the downstairs bar at the venue was open so we headed there finding a few folk already there – not least Ellis and Dom playing pool, the rest of the band we saw heading out for food as we were heading in. Sue, Paul, Brian, Karen, Claire and assorted other folk soon started joining our merry band – tainted by the sad news coming in from Stevenage that Simon was feeling too poorly to make the trip up – get well soon, Simon!

Much fun was had with balloons from the halloween decorations, and the amazing discovery of what happens when you blow e-cigarette vapour into a glass (which I’m sad I never recorded now), before long it was time to head upstairs into the venue proper.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 31st October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos

Having a Hoot in Norwich..

Norwich is a strange place to get to – in my head getting Snotty to train up to Loughborough so that we could head from there made sense, Norfolk’s main (only?) city is kind of across and down a bit from there, and going via Stevenage would’ve been a massive L shape. Blindly following my Sat Nav though took us most of the way back there before hopping over the A1 and into East Anglia. Ho hum! I had kind of assumed it would take me on a more direct cross-country route!

After negotiating a bit of traffic we were soon checked into the Travelodge in the city centre and in the market for something to eat. Along with Dave and Caroline we were off towards the venue, and found The Woolpack nearby that provided us with food and drink, and some riffraff in the form of much of the band arriving shortly after – and Mick too. Scott was in trouble for what he described as ‘long distance darts.’ They provided some pretty awesome bangers and mash in a Yorkshire pud.

Shortly before heading off Dave had summoned me outside for what could’ve been a sinister conversation – it turned out to be quite the opposite – and soon enough we were off to the venue. The Owl Sanctuary unfortunately didn’t have any owls in it, although I don’t suppose they would’ve appreciated the noise levels once the acts got started. An administrative complication meant Waggy et al didn’t actually know The Lagan were up first, so a bonus for us but I guess extra faffing with sound-checking, but it all went off pretty well in the end. The front bar area was in a horseshoe shape, with the venue out the back.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 31st October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Not extinguished at the Old Fire Station..

As morning broke in Newcastle I was feeling pretty good – both Carl and I had a great night’s sleep and were up and ready to tackle breakfast downstairs where we found Waggy and Ellis already seated. That’s right, Ellis was already there! Folk started arriving downstairs, piecing together the night before – Les had walked to the wrong Premier Inn who gave him a map to find the right one, John and Scott had been on an adventure that saw them end up at the University and in the middle of a busy traffic island – but everyone was unscathed.

Breakfast was very welcome, that’s for sure! Eventually with everyone sorted and checked out we returned to Cerebus for the next leg of our journey, Brad hopping in Ellis’ car, Les coming with us as he’d travelled up by train from Leeds. We needed to get a bit of fuel, and as Carl spotted a convenient petrol station Scott and John’s choice of location for a cigarette break gave Ken the chance to spot and recognise The Denton, which was the venue for Jay’s wake last year.

Having bought some poppies in the garage Ken decided we needed to go and have a pint to honour our old friend – Carl duly drove the bus over there and we did just that, a fitting way to be heading out of Newcastle to follow the course of Hadrian’s Wall (every wall we passed on the way loudly announced to be Hadrian’s Wall). Kenny’s battery had run out so I let him use mine to peruse Facebook. Amazingly he resisted the urge to ‘Frape’ me – unless he left inappropriate comments somewhere I’ve yet to find – I don’t think he did though, what a gent!

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 25th October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Howay the Dog in Toon..

… and so seemingly no sooner had my head hit the pillow it was time to get up again for the reverse journey of a few hours before, Mansfield to pick up Scott and John, then onward to Warsop to reconvene with the Ken, Waggy, Carl and Brad to get into Cerebus and head north to Newcastle. It was a decent run, punctuated by card games – some pretty impressive card tricks from John and some unfortunate experimenting with sherbet and crushed Parma Violets.

The least said about that the better. Let’s just say that the crushed Love Hearts were a step too far.

The Cluny is an old converted industrial spinning mill in the Ouseburn Valley area of Newcastle. A cracking venue with a low dance floor/stage area overlooked by a balcony with a small bar at the back of a nice looking eatery/bar area. As this was my only gig of the weekend where drinking was really an option we’d indulged a little on the way up, and carried on in the venue after loading in all the gear whilst everyone went about their setting up. It was quite nice to just sit up on the balcony and chill for a bit – Mick had arrived early too so joined us.

The soundcheck was over quickly for the band, when it was Gaz’s turn he even did a few Brad impressions – meanwhile Waggy had been sorting out who was rooming with who at the hotel later, and gave Brad a few tips on how to get Ellis to settle down to sleep. I hope he didn’t take it too seriously! I was sharing a room with Carl which worked quite well – we were both knackered from lack of sleep so were up for a few drinks post-gig but not a ridiculously heavy night. Meanwhile Scott dropped the revelation that he could do Mongolian throat singing and promised to demonstrate at the soundcheck in Carlisle.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 25th October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Bringing the ceiling down in Leeds..

I had intended to get the Leeds blog up on the night, but tiredness won – but rather than write a mega-long blog post I’ll split this into three instalments for each of the gigs. So first up was Leeds, and it was to be a return to Cerebus for me – so first order of business was to get up to Ken’s where Carl and John were already getting on board, Dom arrived shortly after then it was just Waggy and Scott to pick up before we hit the road to Leeds, mercifully avoiding the M1 tailbacks that struck others on the way.

One of the nice contextual things about travelling with the band is experiencing their build-up to a gig – Cerebus (the Ferocious Dog tour bus) is a well appointed van, with a section at the back for all the gear (which just about fits), a seating area at the back around a table with lighting and its own music player and then the cab at the front seats the driver and up to two more. It’s great, but not exactly comfy for extended periods – boredom soon struck, an eclectic selection of gangster rap John had compiled was playing, and the cards were out for rounds of ‘bullshit’ and rummy.

But luckily Leeds isn’t too far away and we’d soon arrived and parked up behind the venue between a camper van an act in another part of the venue were using, and a pizza van that would open later to provide much needed sustenance. The Brudenell is an ace small venue – it’s my first time there but a good sized room over a couple of levels with the bar at the top and a lower level dance floor in front of the stage. We were soon unloaded leaving the band, Dom and the sound man to get everything set up and plugged in.

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 25th October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

And a Bostin’ time was had by all!

How on earth do you go about summing up a day like Bostin’ Days Live? Both Jamie and Bart at different points in the day asked me how on earth I was going to keep track, I revealed a bit of note-taking on my phone to act as an aide memoire but well, that’s something I generally do (except when in Ferocious Dog moshpits funnily enough – can you imagine?!) and I frequently still frequently forget crucial details. But making a few notes and making sure I grab a photo of key things I’ve seen generally suffices to at least try to get the point across.

The early finish in Bristol combined with exorbitant drink prices in the O2 Academy saw me on the road in good time – only an accident on the M42 caused some delays around Solihull, as I work there I’m well-versed in dodging that road, so got myself to my hotel where the owner was glad to let me check in early so I was at The Crew well before everything started. Clad in the best wristband I’ve been given all year (it’s going to be a real bind to take this one off) and a nice plastic pint pot. I thought about being sensible and ordered a cider. Oops.

Shortly after Snotty and Simon arrived, it had been a bit odd being at a couple of Ferocious Dog gigs without her (the first question either of us get when out without the other is ‘where’s Snotface/Fisher?’ Anyway, it was good to be at an event together – as folk started arriving we made our way upstairs where things were kicking off – Steve Bentley opened the event by introducing the first performer and compere for the upstairs stage, Stevie ‘One Bloke One Mandolin’ Simpson, and also inviting a sheepish looking Addie on to the stage to mark the start of the event.

Now, I am confident I’ll remember everyone I saw – whether I remember songs I heard is another matter entirely!

(more…)

Freeborn Al / 18th October 2015 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments