ferocious dog – Page 15 – Ferocious Blog

The real derby day this weekend was in.. well.. Derby!

Scotty - proving to be a bit of a hotty with the Ferocious lady folk

Scotty – proving to be a bit of a hotty with Ferocious lady folk

Folk might’ve been getting excited about the Manchester derby this weekend, but for Hell Hounds derby day was the day before (although Dan at least I imagine enjoyed United’s 4-2 triumph over City this afternoon – nice belated birthday present!).

Derby is not far off a home town gig, really – and it shows, whilst Bodega sold out in around twenty minutes tickets for the gig at The Hairy Dog in Derby were gone in a little under an hour too I believe. Plenty of Hell Hounds made arrangements to congregate in places prior to coming together at the venue, for me I was continuing my weekend of being an itinerant hobo and staying with Lisa and Paul (along with Rachel) so I travelled into Derby with them, but not before meeting their newly acquired ferret!

It was straight to the venue via the chippy on the corner for us with Mel, and then once at the Hairy Dog, a rock bar with the venue upstairs, catching up with the countless friends out in force for the gig. Dave, a friend of Lisa and Ferocious Dog virgin, met us outside the bar, after sinking a few beers Dean elected it was my turn to go up on the surfboard – more on that later, a fairly unconventional and ungraceful performance on that front.

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Freeborn Al / 12th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

FD put a smile on Cambridge’s boat race..

Back on the road for the recommencement of the tour. My original plan for Cambridge was just to drive there and back, it’s not a million miles away from where I live and there’s the promise of Derby the following night, but thanks to the hospitality of Brian and Karen I did end up staying and having a few cheeky ciders in Cambridge which is a nice bonus – particularly with them both off on their travels today. Thank you very much, both!

On the drive into Cambridge along with Brian’s cousin John, a Ferocious Dog debutant, I wondered whether Ken had been sticking up the assorted Vote Labour boards I saw on the way in. It doesn’t strike me as a typically Labour area – maybe that’s why those supporters that are there feel the need to advertise! – but I didn’t see any other political parties represented. Either way, it was no time at all before we’d parked up coincidentally arriving at the same time as Simon and Ella and parking up right behind them.

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Freeborn Al / 11th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

Getting in the mood..

It’s only one more sleep ’til the tour recommences in Cambridge – and as if to heighten the excitement Ken shared a video that’s surfaced from the Nuneaton gig. I forgot to mention the exciting prospect of a film crew recording the gig. The best bit is that it says ‘sample’ in the title – implying to my ever optimistic mind that there might be more to follow! Either way, I can’t think of much better preparation for this weekend’s mosh-fest than reliving a past one!

Keep an eye on howling mad productions‘ YouTube channel and see if any more videos surface! For now, here’s ‘Poor, Angry and Young‘ (which Roger amusingly pointed out on Facebook has a similar intro to ‘Rock Lobster‘ by the B52s – which once you realise can’t be unheard! Sorry about that.

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Freeborn Al / 9th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Videos / 0 Comments

Epiphany..

forest_pic It’s probably not really an epiphany at all.

An epiphany is a sudden realising of a truth, a revelation. What I’m about to describe is probably a slow acceptance of the bleeding obvious, but well, with the next tour date looming on the horizon it prompted the thought process – so now you have to put up with it, ha ha!

In another part of my life I’m a pretty avid football fan – I support Nottingham Forest for my sins – and have a season ticket. A few times in the last few years Ferocious Dog has come into conflict with this other life passion of mine. This passion is one I don’t regret – it’s if nothing else a chance to spend time with my brother and a number of my closest friends – many of whom I met through this shared interest.

Of course, it also allows me to fund millionnaire footballers which sits less easily in the justification stakes!

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Freeborn Al / 7th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Thoughts / 0 Comments

Freeborn John your vision lingers on..

I don’t know if it’s just me that often researches subject matter of songs – the last Levellers album has resulted in me gathering books about the Raft of the Medusa and the Étaples mutiny to learn more about the inspiration for songs on the album, indeed, 3 Daft Monkeys‘ Days of the Dance too added to my library to learn more about the dancing plague of Strasbourg.

With Freeborn John, my favourite Ferocious Dog song, I didn’t need to read up retrospectively because I’m already a bit of a geek for the subject of it – John Lilburne. If you want an in depth book to read on the subject then I’d recommend ‘Free-Born John – The Biography of John Lilburne’ by Pauline Gregg, and also checking out The John Lilburne Research Institute.

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Freeborn Al / 1st April 2015 / Band, Music, Other Bands, Thoughts / 0 Comments

What’s in a name?

ferocious-dog-dan-booth-300x300 Dan let slip on Facebook yesterday that the second album will be completed in recording terms at the end of this week – and that the name of it will be ‘From Without’. He might’ve mentioned that before to be fair, but he encouraged folk to have a hunt on Google to try to find the reference it might be inspired by. So I’ve been doing just that to pass the time – whether I’ve landed on the inspiration for the name or not remains to be seen!

Also, if you haven’t already then get it pre-ordered by Saturday as it will then come signed by the whole band.

In the context of without meaning ‘on the outside’ it’s listed as archaic – so whilst you might be without something, to be – for example – opening a door from without seems a charmingly antiquated way of phrasing compared to opening a door from within. Could it be as simple as that? A traditional way of describing themselves as being from the outside? It sort of fits, no record label, self-releasing, shunning many of the trappings of the modern music industry.

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Freeborn Al / 30th March 2015 / Band, Music, Thoughts / 0 Comments

Har-low can you go?

After a bit of an enforced break from ‘dogging’ it was back into action yesterday, hitting the road for I think my furthest flung Ferocious Dog gig in Harlow, Essex. With the threat of the M25 around rush hour I allowed plenty of time for the drive and predictably hit no traffic at all, arriving at the venue and parking up with an hour and a half to spare before opening. Oops! Dan and Leanne arrived moments later, the rest of the band were already in situ.

Luckily The Square has a bar area that was open so it was there I headed and earwigged the sound-checking as more folk began to arrive. After getting armbanded up and heading upstairs the gig venue was pretty compact – wide with a shallow dance floor with a worryingly nearby staircase you could end up getting launched down – luckily the mosh pit wasn’t too expansive so that never proved to be too much of a risk!

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Freeborn Al / 28th March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

New album nearing completion – what splendour!

A typically teasing Dan post in the Ferocious Dog Facebook group today revealed that Les has been in the studio today finishing off his guitar pieces for the forthcoming album, with Dan and Ellis due in this week to finish off followed by Ken next week along with an orchestra (!). This of course implies that John and Scott are one-take wonders.

A suitably exciting way to build up to the live action restarting this Friday at The Square in Harlow. I’m looking forward to hitting the road to Essex for the next instalment of the tour – just another week of work to get out the way first!

In other news the band have confirmed they’re appearing at Nottingham’s Splendour festival this year – teeing up The Twang and Bananarama on the Confetti Stage meaning that they’ll be finished in time to check out James and The Specials on the Main Stage which – no disrespect to The Twang or Bananarama – works well for me! It’s not the first time Ferocious Dog have appeared at the festival but this time at a much more conducive time of the day.

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Freeborn Al / 23rd March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

And the devil sends his ale hounds for me, boys..

Martin Gormley posted in the Ferocious Dog Facebook group earlier confessing to a mis-heard lyric situation – we’ve all been there. In his case it was the very name of the song that featured in the error though! In Hell Hounds rather than “And the devil sends his hell hounds for me boys” he was merrily singing along “And the devil sends his ale hounds for me boys” – which if you listen to it could be understandable given Ken’s accent (and if you go to the trouble to forget what the song is called!).

It got me thinking of my own mishearing of Ferocious Dog songs – indeed, Hell Hounds was my the source favourite one – in the line “Tonight I lay with a buxom whore in a brothel drenched in beer” I had somehow conspired to hear it as “Tonight I lie with a buxom whore on the bonnet of an HGV” – have a listen, tell me I’m wrong! The mental image it’s evoked tickled me so much I got my sketch book out. I apologise unreservedly to Kenny for my awful caricature skills!

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Freeborn Al / 19th March 2015 / Band, Hell Hounds, Music, Thoughts / 0 Comments

Back to basics..

There’s no substitution for a full on Ferocious Dog gig, it’s true – however, there’s something quite magical about hearing their songs stripped back to their acoustic foundations too. At one time that would happen when songs were being written or kicked about and sometimes we were lucky enough to have them appear on YouTube (I’ve chosen Ken performing a beautiful rendition of Unconditional, but equally you could pick Dan’s preview of Lyla that he teased us with before the band worked their magic on it).

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Freeborn Al / 19th March 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Videos / 0 Comments