While flying around from my first gig to my second gig and then across to my hotel, I was hearing fast Cajun style banjo playing in the background. I've always thought that the East Midlands was a bit one horse town in general even though it has big cities in the case of Nottingham, Leicester and Derby.

I had to drive like a heed the ball because I was informed at the last moment that the gig at Nottingham Glee was actually starting 45 minutes earlier at 7.45 because there was a music gig taking place upstairs in the main room. I loaded up the car and went belting down the motorway and arrived just in time to take the stage. Steve Harris compered and then Josh Howie and Paul Tonkinson were on after me. I didn't see them, by this time I was off to Loughborough to close the town hall gig up there.

Nottingham wasn't exactly a cake walk, it was up and down, some stuff went really well then there was other bits that just got the tumbleweed. Percentage wise though it was okay and although I'm not doing anything 'out there' on the circuit gigs at the moment, I do have a strong fireproof 20-25 these days and I'd say I was as consistent as ever. I joked, they laughed, I left, job done. 

Loughborough town hall looked a bit bollocks when I walked into the place. It wasn't actually held in the big room in the town hall but rather the upstairs balcony of the reception area and I'm not joking. The bill itelf was Sam Avery compering and a couple of others as well as myself. I got there a bit early so took advantage of walking round town to get something to eat and came to the conclusion I'd rather whack my cock with a claw hammer every morning than live there. No disrespect if you're from Loughborough, well to be honest no one is actually from there I'd say, it's just chock full of students and you can tell the place would go to fuck without them. A town just surviving on an influx of students thanks Maggie T.

The thirty or so that were in the passage where I played were very nice and were up for all the silliness and surrealness much more than the city centre Glee club crowd where I'd come from. They went with every routine and because they were so nice I plumped for my BBC world service routine rather than the swear word one. I didn't want to have anyone hit with hard line swearing at that time of night. Maybe I should've gone with that but hey ho, I'm my own producer, director and editor and I'd say I got it wrong looking back. Make a decision to do something even if it's nowt is what they say and I made a decision and to be fair it worked reasonably well.

I'm definitely going to retire the BBC world service routine at some point in the near future. The trouble is, it's a bit like having a 34 year old wily striker that can notch about 14 goals a season and is still doing a good job for you. I have other great routines but maybe out of loyalty and nostalgia and the small fact that it works really well, I still want to keep it. It was without a doubt one of the routines like the Pedophiles routine that got me noticed and got me into the big clubs. Before it gets put out to grass I'll almost certainly get it up on Youtube, I don't think it's going to end up on a DVD at any time so Youtube looks like it's going to be it's retirement home.

Tonight it's an altogether easier affair where I'll just be at The Glee club doing one performance. Tomorrow and Monday I'm off then next week from Tuesday is another crazy non stop week which ends in the uncharted territory of my first residency gig at The Stand Newcastle on my birthday. A leap in the dark that could go one way or the other. If it fucks up though who cares, it's not like it's the end of humanity, that happened the moment BBC2 invented 'Rock School' or when Esther Rantzen started to get popular.

Right off to watch football. Keep it punk. Speak tomorrow.

TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY BEN AND MARY FROM THE BIRDS EYE ADVERTS IN THE 70s

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)