funke and the two tone baby – Page 4

Deer, stock and (mead) barrel..

Ah, so that was Deerstock. Now I’m home, the tent is dried and back in the bag (subject to repairs later), I’m showered and the washing machine is on probably the most daunting task of the day is how on earth to go about summing up four days and nights of mayhem in a field in Newton? Deerstock 2014 was definitely the highlight of my year last year, and this year might well have just gone and topped even that. So I will apologise in advance for the wordiness, and for the inevitable blanks in my recall… this is going to be a loooooong post.

Off work on Thursday I was mooching around planning on arriving on the site around 4pm – upon messaging Tim around lunchtime he revealed that he and Tina had already set up camp – so rather than pace around the house I hopped straight in the car and made my way to Newton via the supermarket for last minute supplies. Tina and Tim had done a great job in saving a chunk of space to keep us all together – and I was soon pitched and sorted in time to help Lisa and Pixie get their tent up.

Once cabin fever relieves you get that slight craziness and the concoctions came out perhaps a little earlier than planned. As we got steadily more pickled by the fire we had the chance to marvel at how quickly Spike can put up his gigantic tent, and see our village slowly constructing itself around us. A ramshackle and wonderful mixture of camper vans and tents nestled together containing many of my favourite people – sure, there wasn’t any music on, but that wasn’t really needed.

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Freeborn Al / 27th July 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos

Cutting a Funke Outline..

A diversion away from my normal subject matter again, but a good one – and kinda FD-related. For my day job I do quite a bit of driving, which can be a bind but also a great opportunity to absorb music, and this week the postman was especially kind to me this week delivering new albums from both The Outlines and Funke and the Two Tone Baby (the latter of which I forgot that I’d backed as part of a crowdfunding campaign a while ago – so that was a great surprise!).

Both acts are probably familiar to most folk reading a Ferocious Dog themed blog – Funke has shared events with them a number of times, including DogFest and indeed Something to Smile About last month. To my eternal shame whenever I’ve been at events he’s played I’ve either found myself missing it due to getting food (DogFest) or being under extreme influence of alcohol and not really taking it in (Something to Smile About) – only to find my friends absolutely raving about him.

So come Deerstock I fully intend to be in a fit state to appreciate his performance. I’m making no promises though, there’s strange fruit and other goodies at that particular festival! As for The Outlines, well they are fronted by none other than Kyle Peters who was guitarist and vocalist for one song for Ferocious Dog until recently – now along with Martyn Brown on Bass and Dean Hill on drums they are producing some rather awesome punk rock tuneage. I’ve yet to catch them live, I’m looking forward to doing so soon though!

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Freeborn Al / 2nd July 2015 / Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

Whoa-oh.. the dogs of Brixton..

Gracetonbury in Brixton was going to be another of those pauses in my Ferocious Dog diary that turned out not to be a pause. A sell-out event, I was lucky enough to spot some returns go on sale in a moment of weakness and snapped them up. With Simon and Ella kind enough to offer me crash-space for the evening it made the decision all the more easy (not that I take much persuading, as you may have noticed!).

First order of business was to get myself down to their place, from where we picked up Ella from work. Her boss was somewhat confused to see her literally pounce upon an unsuspecting customer wandering into the place (me), and soon enough we hit the road – the plan being to park the car up in a secure spot in Camden that Simon had access to, tube it down the Victoria line to Brixton and get a taxi back to Camden later.

After parking up and meeting a horse that was close to where we parked (no really!) it was a quick schlep to Kings Cross and off we went. I had planned on playing my favourite tube game of looking at people and smiling – this backfired when a lovely friendly lady sat opposite me, but that was better if anything, friendly people on the tube! Even better still, she asked if Simon was my dad – ha ha! Sorry Simon.

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Freeborn Al / 14th June 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments