Friday 30 November 2012

BAIBS Friday 30/11/12

Friday! Weekend n all that. Lie ins. Sofa days. That's the plan. Ish. First task (sorry Richard, tsk) is to shake this cough/cold/manflu* and with this in mind gone for medicine number 5 this week. Herbal Mucus Cough Syrup. Non drowsy. This is good cos my mucus does have a kind of herbal feel to it. And non drowsy means the syrup will be ready and alert when I need it.

*delete as applicable

So what does the weekend have in store presuming the herbal mucus finally caves in. Meal tonight for my good friend Rob Dannatt's birthday. Going Everest. Only Rob would have a birthday bash 29,002ft up. The boy's a fool. No doubt he'll make me dance to Spandau Ballet later too. And it's his birthday so for once I cant moan about him not putting his hand in his pocket.

No Tom Harking tomorrow. Rovers away at Oldham in The FA Cup 2nd round. I know Dean Saunders has said this week that he wants to progress in all competitions but I'd gladly put a reserve team out, take the beating and 'concentrate on the league'.

Tomorrow night is more burlesque as Cherry Blossom hosts a night at The Sun Inn. Oh that'll be such a chore!

That's it. Quiet weekend for me.

I've moved again today. If I told you how many times I've moved you wouldn't believe me. Seriously, you wouldn't. Ask me. I bet you don't believe me. My vinyls come with me again despite not being played for probably over ten years now. I stare at it longingly, promising it it's time will come again! Saying that a friend of a friend went into a local electric store last week and asked if they had any record players and the shop assistant said 'a what?'

A stunning show this morning even if I do say so myself. Found out I was being listened to in Australia, India, Canada, China, the USA and Scunthorpe. Actually got a message from someone in Australia who lives in a village the name of which I forget so in stereotypical fashion I'll call it Woollaburraburra. 30 people live in this village and they all listened in to the show. 100% of the populace! I'm gonna get a little mystical now but when a show flows like it did today I can't explain it. Everything just clicks and a radio Midas touch takes over that I feel I have little to do with. What? Pretentious? Moi? Yeah, you're probably right. Still, it was the quickest 3 hours of my life.

OK, off to do something herbal and find a Sherpa.

Laters

SS

Playlist Friday 30/11/12

Wings Of A Dove - Madness
Thunderstruck - AC/DC
Chevy Thunder - Spector
Seven Nation Army - White Stripes
Underdog - Kasabian
Fortune Teller - The 48ks
Best Of Friends - Palma Violets
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
Wrecking Ball - Bruce Springsteen
Alright - The Subways
God Gave Rock n Roll To You - Kiss
What You Do To Me - Teenage Fanclub
End Of The Line - Traveling Wilburys
Souls Uncensored - Section 60
A Letter From America - The Proclaimers
If The Kids Are United - Sham 69
Black Chandelier - Biffy Clyro
Jukebox Generation - Goldblade
To My Knees - White Valentine
Teenage Dream - T-Rex
Good Enough - Dodgy
Beat It - Michael Jackson
I'm Falling - The Bluebells
Brass In Pocket - The Pretenders
The Day We Caught The Train - Ocean Colour Scene
Step On - Happy Mondays
Just Cant Get Enough - Depeche Mode
Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
Dead And Gone - The Black Keys
Breakfast At Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Valley Of The Dolls - Generation X
Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol
Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg
Kennedy - The Wedding Present
Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

Thursday 29 November 2012

BAIBS Thursday 29/11/12

Well I was expecting to write this all woozy and with a hole in my arm but because of this stupid cold my blood's not wanted yet. I'd like to say I give blood out of kindness for my fellow man but in all honesty I like the selfish feeling that I've done something worthwhile more. I don't really think what happens to my armful of blood once it's bagged up. Oh and I like the biscuits too. I actually started giving blood because I was too old to go on the bone marrow donation register. No over 40s! Bit harsh, but giving blood puts me on the bone marrow one too. Odd rule. Personally I think, like voting, donating of blood or organs should be compulsory. Or at least an opt out card as oppose to the opt in way we do it now. When I go harvest what you want. I'd steer clear of the lungs and liver but my eyes are top notch.

In all seriousness though when my friend and colleague Pete Meredith died recently 7 people benefited from organ donations. Just think how many families are having a better Christmas thanks to Pete.

Approached in town today by a guy wanting 27p to get to Manchester. Now I don't need to go to Manchester at the moment but if he knows a way to get there for 27p then I wanna know about it. Which reminds me, I was once asked by a bloke at Kings Cross if I wanted a cabbage. I should explain. In my youth I'd gig all over the country. Buy ticket, get to gig, worry about getting home after. This lead to many a night sleeping, or trying to, on stations. Normally there'd be a train first thing that would get me to work on time. Admittedly after a night gigging, little sleep, no change of clothes or proper wash I wasn't overly popular with my work colleagues.

It didn't always work though. Went to see U2 at Birmingham NEC on The Joshua Tree tour. 1987? No train back that night and first train in the morning would get me back to Donny way too late for work. So I slept on Birmingham New Street and phoned in sick from the station. Just as the station announcer advised passengers of the time of the next train to Bristol Temple Meads. Got back to Donny to find out I'd been sacked. Cant really argue with that.

Anyway, think it was after The Pogues at the Town and Country Club in Kentish Town, I'd made my way back to King's Cross. Spent a few nights on that station in my time. A very interesting place. You can buy ANYTHING! This night in particular I'd already wore a squatter's coat. He told me to try it on. I fell over. It weighed a ton cos of all the crowbars and bolt crops in the lining. Then this bloke came up to me and asked if I wanted a cabbage. I'm just a simple Northern lad in the big city. I figured 'cabbage' was some slang term for something probably very illegal. He asked again and opened his bag to reveal about 15 cabbages. And he was giving them away. Obviously the cabbage market at that time must have been struggling. Colombians importing cheaper cabbages or something. Probably cutting them with cauliflowers. I declined. I don't like cabbages and certainly had no need for one at King's Cross Station at 4am.

On the train home a very attractive young lady told me she'd do anything for some fresh veg. D'oh! OK that  bit's not true.

Laters

SS

Playlist Thursday 29/11/12

Radioactive - Kings Of Leon
Rat Race - The Specials
Young Savage - Ultravox
Getting Away With It - Electronic
The Messenger - Johnny Marr
Sing For The Deaf - Missing Andy
Slight Return - The Bluetones
Valentine - Gbone
Everything Must Go - Manic Street Preachers
Teenage Icon - The Vaccines
Brassneck - The Wedding Present
Mr. E's Beautiful Blues - Eels
Just To See You Run - Bang Bang Romeo
Moondance - Van Morrison
Antarctica - Sound Of Guns
One Drop - PIL
Molly Gray - Sick Note Tez
You've Got The Love - Florence and the Machine
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
Lead The Way - The 48ks
So Here We Are - Bloc Party
A Certain Romance - The Arctic Monkeys
The Man In Me - Bob Dylan
Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode
Spies - Famous Villains
If I Ever Stray - Frank Turner
Last To Die - Bruce Springsteen
I'm Your Witchdoctor - John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers
Let's Let It Go - White Valentine
Hedonism - Skunk Anansie
Let's Go Shopping - The Sultans Of Ping F.C.
Swords Of A Thousand Men - Tenpole Tudor
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
Handle With Care - The Traveling Wilburys
After Hours - We Are Scientists
This Is How It Feels - Inspiral Carpets
Dust My Blues - Tim Graham and the Black Cats
Babies - Pulp
Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

Wednesday 28 November 2012

BAIBS Wednesday 28/11/12

Confessions Of A Sausage. It occurs to me that I've not made any life changing confessions at all in these blogs so here goes. I confess that I am not a sausage.

I'm due a rant. Facebook is my chosen subject. I got a request this morning from the group 'Join if you hate cancer.' Ridiculous. Of course I hate cancer, it owes me a Mother. Who doesn't hate cancer? By not joining am I saying I like cancer? What a pointless group! And say we all join, will cancer then think 'Oh. A billion people hate me. I shall cease and desist all my cancering from now on.'? Far too many groups like that on facebook. As soon as a child dies within minutes the R.I.P. group is up, normally started by someone totally unconnected. If it was my child I wouldn't want any such thing. Strangers leave messages, not to give their condolences, but to say 'Look at me. How caring am I?!' You're not caring, you're intruding. I have a friend on a hate campaign via facebook at the moment. To be fair his targets are quite specific, all living things and all objects. Why I don't know. I just find it a tad embarrassing. I like facebook, and twitter, and social networking in general. Just wish people didn't live their lives through it.

Rant over.


More blogging from a building site today. There's a nasty looking mudbath where the decking used to be and decking leaning against a wall in a very casual manner. I've left the mud and the decking to it. I presume they'll work it out. If I intervene I'll end up muddy and under the decking.

I may have jumped the gun re The Leaf War of Elmfield Park. DMBC have certainly won the battle but as for the war? Well I stumbled across a path knee deep in leaves this morning. Your knees not mine, and there was lots of singing of rebel songs and mutterings of the leaf will rise again. I'd walked in on a meeting of the Leaf Resistance Movement (The Deciduous LRM) and they sounded ready for action to me.

Tom Hark night at The Keepmoat again. Just the one pushing of the button required but it was enough to put Rovers 2nd in the table on goal difference. I'm amazed I managed to press the button given I work with Rob Dannatt. He's forever interrupting, he's even interrupting me as I write this. Still, I now know his favourite confectionery is a Lion Bar. Useful stuff. I've gotta write a piece for the Rovers' programme about what me and Rob do. Er, eat pie and push buttons should cover it. Oh and correct grammar. We're forever correcting the grammar on the Keepmoat scoreboard. Rob wanted me to do a whole piece on grammar correction but given that yesterday's blog included the words 'an quality' I'm gonna give it a miss.

For those interested neither sausage rolling or laying in rook pies cures manflu.

Laters

SS

Playlist Wednesday 28/11/12

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick - Ian Dury and the Blockheads
By Your Hand - Los Campesinos
In Between Days - The Cure
Don't Go - Yazoo
Dakota - Stereophonics
Chemicals - Various Cruelties
Shock The Monkey - Peter Gabriel
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
Condominium - Fantasy Rainbow
Best Of Friends - Palma Violets
Fishing For A Dream - Turin Brakes
Adore Me Dear - Bang Bang Romeo
Rip It Up - Orange Juice
Spinning Plates - Middleman
First Of The Gang To Die - Morrissey
Whirring - The Joy Formidable
Slumdog Millionaire - The Beeds
Lost - The Pigeon Detectives
Weather With You - Crowded House
Millionaires - Famous Villains
Too Much Too Young - The Specials
I Always Knew - The Vaccines
Paradise City - Guns n Roses
Thou Shalt Always Kill - Dan La Sac vs Scroobius Pip
Saturday - The Enemy
Shadow - Gringo Star
Rebellion (Lies) - Arcade Fire
Stop In The Name Of Love - The Supremes
Tears Of A Clown - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
(Love Is Like A) Heatwave - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
Black Chandelier - Biffy Clyro
Temptation - New Order
La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) - Manic Street Preachers
Smooth - New Killer Shoes
Oh My God - Kaiser Chiefs
Paper Boat - The Penny Lovers
Days Are Forgotten - Kasabian
Afterglow - The Crookes
Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

Tuesday 27 November 2012

BAIBS Tuesday 27/11/12

I've come home to some sort of black and decker thing in the living room. Don't know what it is. I know it's not a workmate cos they have legs. It's got a circular metal bit and a bag. I've heard the words circular and saw put together before so I'm going with that. My DIY skills are limited. Actually that's doing my incompetence a disservice. My DIY skills are nil. I've never successfully completed any DIY task. Shelves, catflaps, decorating, you name it. All a complete disaster. There's a bloke here now who obviously does have skills. He's measuring and sawing (I was right about the saw then). Means I'm writing this with a headache and sawdust on my waffles.

Regular listeners to the show will be aware of my accurate and incisive traffic reports. OK, traffic's something I know nothing about too. As previously discussed I don't drive, it's something to do with badgers. But I still churn out the traffic reports even though they're no use to me. I'm a pedestrian. I walk pretty much everywhere in Donny. This is because of my fitness regime and protectiveness of the environment. OK maybe it's more to do with the aforementioned badgers and my tightness when it comes to public transport. But no traffic report caters for us pedestrians. It's alright saying such and such a road is flooded but is the pavement flooded? Is it passable in sturdy boots? Roadworks on the A6whatever. OK, but pavementworks too? Can I get that way or is there a pedestrian contraflow? Oh I so want one of those!

It saddens me to report some rather cowardly tactics by DMBC in the leaf war. It was pretty much over. A few odd oak leaves in the undergrowth still fighting a guerilla war maybe but the ceasefire remained in place. But DMBC found an unexpected ally to defeat nature in nature itself. Namely rain. The weekend's rain turned the leaves into mulch. DMBC wasted no time in whipping out the Dyson World Domination Vacuum (patent denied) and armed with brushes, rakes, hoes and spikes an army of workers descended and descimated nearly 95% of the leaf army. It was like the end of The Last Samurai. I had a lump in my throat.

So today's show passed without incident, got the Dave Gedge and Vaccines interviews edited ready for radio broadcast, and avoided Mark Kelly and his manflu. It could be by manflu that he's borrowed. If that's the case then he can keep it. I'm generous like that.

Tonight sees me down at the Keepmoat in charge of the Tom Hark button again. Press it 9 times and we go top if Oldham fail to score. That's not literally true of course. If Rovers league position was purely based on me pressing play on a cd player we'd be back to back Premiership Champions by now. We're not if you hadn't noticed.

Off to roll in rook pies now. A poet told me to do it so it must be benificial. Maybe an old Roman cure for manflu. I'll let you know Mark.

Laters

SS

Playlist Tuesday 27/11/12

Real Gone Kid - Deacon Blue
Jennifer - Little Comets
Black Chandelier - Biffy Clyro
Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Not Too Fussed - The Likely Lads
Quiet Night In - All The Young
It Must Be Love - Madness
Downbound Train - Bruce Springsteen
Wasted Time - The Undivided
Last Nite - The Strokes
You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse
We Wear Our Bones - Bang Bang Romeo
Hold The Magic - Officer Kicks
Goodbye Kiss - Kasabian
Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
Run Right Back - The Black Keys
Hey Ho - The Beeds
Hands Off She's Mine - The Beat
Freakin' Out - Graham Coxon
Country House - Blur
Steppin' Out Queen - Van Morrison
I Will Wait - Mumford and Sons
Back Of My Hand - The Jags
These Days Are Mine - I Am Kloot
2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band
It'a A Living Thing - ELO
Break On Through (To The Other Side) - The Doors
Keep The Faith - Bon Jovi
She Bangs The Drums - The Stone Roses
Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club
American Slang - The Gaslight Anthem
Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson
I Wish I Was Someone Better - Blood Red Shoes
Pretty In Pink - Psychedelic Furs
All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
Pounding - Doves
Chevy Thunder - Spector
Jump - Van Halen  
Don't Stop - Rolling Stones


Monday 26 November 2012

BAIBS Monday 26/11/12

It's 2pm and I've just got in. Show finishes at 10am. It begs the question what have been doing for the last 4 hours. I'm not totally sure. I bought a tie, got shouted at about satsumas, had some pie and just generally tossed it off really, gossiping at Sine FM Towers.

The tie. I'm a bloke.I shop thus: Go to shop that sells what I want. Buy it. Leave. I have no plan B and internet shopping just confuses me. I can buy gig tickets on line but I'm clueless about everything else. To be honest I'm hopeless with technology, which is a worry given the value of the equipment they let me loose with at Sine. Anyway, the tie. It had to be gold. Don't ask, it just needed to be gold. Not real gold obviously, that'd be ridiculous. Or even fool's gold. Don't go there. So first shop I visit, which I know sells ties doesn't have a gold coloured tie. Orange will do, but gold's preferable. It would appear orange/gold ties are out of season. I'm not sure what that means. I can understand a beetroot being out of season but not a colour. Second shop, same outcome. This is when I need someone to open 'The Gold, We Have Orange If That Will Do, Coloured Tie Shop.' I'm panicking now. No plan B you see. One shop assistant kindly offered 'Will red do?' Idiot! Thankfully shop four had just the tie required. I now own a gold, it could be orange, tie.

Walking back through town with my gold, could be orange, tie a market trader yelled in my ear about how many satsumas I could get for a pound. I said oranges will do. I must've loooked like someone who had a spare pound and was in need of 8 satsumas. It occurs to me now that he wasn't yelling specifically at me. Just my ear was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like my eyes. Umbrellas. Ban them. Now! At my height umbrellas are lethal. When I walk through town in the rain I'm forever ducking and swerving out of the way of umbrellas. One day someone's gonna get home with my eye impaled on their brolly. Buy a towel and leave my eyes alone!

Pie. A friend of a friend has opened The Yorkshire Pie shop on Silver Street. It sells pie. Made in Yorkshire pie. And it's gorgeous. Sod your kebab on a Saturday night. Get a homemade Yorkshire pie!

Nipped back to Sine for a bit. My good friend Mark Kelly, from The Home Run, was in. We talk. Incessantly. About nothing. I love it. Then the walk home in the rain, more umbrella ducking, and here we are ready to start this blog.

A hectic but hugely enjoyable weekend has passed. Friday was the brilliant Vaccines gig at The Dome. They came out to Slade - Cum On Feel The Noize. Worked a treat. It's not that easy picking entrance music. I'm a fan of entrance music for live bands. It let's the crowd know you're on your way and, given the right music, gets the crowd going. Thunder used to walk a fine line using AC/DC's Thunderstruck to come on stage to. Gotta be a good band to follow that. They just about got away with it. Black Spiders use spaghetti western music. Spot on. Genesis had a good take on it when I saw them in the 80s. They'd done a video for Anything She Does featuring Benny Hill in charge of the back stage area. It ends with the band following the 'to the stage' signs just as they walk on stage for real. Dire Straits used to immerse the venue into pitch blackness so you couldn't see the band on stage and just go straight into the opening song. Marillion always used the overture from Rossini's The Thieving Magpie with a huge stage curtain in place which dropped at the crescendo to reveal the band already in full flow. One of the best I've seen was The Stones at Wembley in 1990. Thunder echoed round the stadium, a huge wall of flame shoots from the the stage as the opening bars of Start Me Up kick in, as it subsides it Keef's on his own on stage thrashing the chords out.

What I'm getting to here is this: I used to be in a band called The Unforgiven. We had this great idea for an entrance. Dry ice, striding on stage, long coats, cowboy boots while Metallica's The Unforgiven played. Brilliant. Just never occured to us that we then had to then, in effect, follow Metallica. We were awful. Lasted one gig! Still, I maintain it's better than shuffling on stage and mumbling hello.

Saturday afternoon and I finally gave the Tom Hark button some hammer at the Keepmoat. 4 times as Rovers pretty much demolished Scunthorpe. Excellent pre match entertainment from The Famous Villains and some quality pie, yes that Yorkshire pie again, made for an quality afternoon.

Saturday night saw me and the Cherry Blossom grace The Flying Childers down Bessecarr way to see The 48ks. Excellent support from both Martin Black and Sine FM's own Pete Liversidge. When The 48ks are on form there's not many, if any, better in Donny. Sounding tighter than I've ever heard them, songs I've been singing for 3 years sounded so fresh. And the new stuff's excellent. Bodes well for the upcoming album. Oh and a stunning acoustic version of Lazy Boy to finish with. Sorry lads but it's still a personal favourite.

 So I'm off to dry off. I don't own an umbrella. Then in an experiment inspired by a twitter conversation this morning I'm going to roll a sausage down a mossy slope. I think battered jumbo will work best.

Laters

SS

Playlist Monday 26/11/12

Shake It Out - Florence and the Machine
She Comes In Fall - Inspiral Carpets
The Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol
Hallelujah - Happy Mondays
Town Called Malice - The Jam
Sun - Two Door Cinema Club
Somewhere - The Pilots
Johnny Too Bad - UB40
I Don't Like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats
No Hope - The Vaccines
It Cant Be Me - The 48ks
Geraldine - Glasvegas
To Be Like - China Rats
Never Fade Away - Spector
On Trial - The Tricks
I Saw You Blink - Stornoway
This Is Real - The Enemy 
The One I Love - REM
Born Of Frustration - James
Love Spreads - The Stone Roses
Back On The Chain Gang - The Pretenders
Dreaming Of You - The Coral
Go Right Ahead - The Hives
Elysium - Section 60
Police And Thieves - The Clash
Silence Is Easy - Starsailor
How Long Have You Known - DIIV
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
One More Shot - Rolling Stones
Just Like The Rain - Richard Hawley
Be My Yoko Ono - Barenaked Ladies
River Deep, Mountain High - Tina Turner
Just Like A Woman - Black Spiders
(All I Wanted Was) Danger - The Milk
Baby Missiles - The War On Drugs
Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies

Saturday 24 November 2012

Vaccines Interview. Doncaster Dome Friday 23/11/12

After what seems like a million emails, txts and phone calls I finally got confirmation of this interview yesterday dinnertime. It's a good thing. Less time to be nervous. I ran the risk of the 'I love you' type interview again cos I do love The Vaccines. Two albums without a single weak track and live performances that leave you breathless make for a pretty awesome band in my book. So here goes:

SS: So I'm backstage at The Dome with Justin and Arni from The Vaccines. Thanks for chatting to me lads.

Justin: Thank you

SS: You've got 6 more UK dates left on this tour?

Justin: Yeah it's quite sad actually, not many left.

SS: Then off to Europe.

Justin and Arni: Yeah, Portugal, Spain, Italy,Switzerland as well then finished for Christmas.

SS: Then your back next year Australia, USA, Canada.

Arni: Yeah we leave on Boxing day

Justin: No rest for the wicked.

SS: So Christmas wont be much fun?

Justin: I'm sure it'll be fun, might just lack a bit of rest

SS: It's quite an extensive tour. Is playing live what The Vaccines are all about?

Justin: I think we're a better live band then we are on record at the moment. We try and recreate what we do live on record. I guess the aim was always to match one with the other. It's something we thrive on and take very seriously. We wanna be as entertaining as we are artistic.

Arni: We put a lot of emphasis on trying to be a better live band.

Justin: Giving people everything we have.

SS: I caught you at Leeds Festival this year.

Justin: That was an amazing gig for us.

SS: You were superb, for me up with Foos, Gaslight Anthem and Black Keys as the set of the weekend.

Arni: That's great to hear.

SS: You're kinda becoming an ultimate festival band. Is that something you were aiming for?

Justin: We never aimed for it but it's weird cos we do seem to do really well at festivals.

SS: I think something like Wetsuit as well, possibly cos of the video, is just a brilliant festival song.

Justin: Exactly. I think too we're kinda no bullshit. It's about good fun, easy to dance to. It's a no brainer when you're drunk!

SS: Back in the UK next year, 5 arena dates. Gonna be doing festivals again?

Justin: Yeah.

Arni: Probably not as many.

SS: Was it year before last you did 45 festivals?

Justin: And this year we did something like 36.

Arni: We've done about 80 festivals in 2 summers. That's pretty crazy.

SS: Festival headline slot soon?

Arni: I don't know about that!

SS: Do you prefer doing festivals or do you miss the intimate gigs from when you first started?

Justin: I think the one good thing about being in a band, certainly a band like ours, is the variety of what we do. There's no greater buzz than walking out at say Leeds Festival and seeing however many thousand people waiting for you to play but then equally there's nothing quite like the intensity you get from playing 20 minutes pop/punk in a 150 venue. There both as intense as each other but in different ways. I like the fact we're lucky enough to do both.

SS: So it was August 2010 when If You Wanna was first put on youtube. 2 top 5 albums since then. A lot of people talk about the meteoric rise of The Vaccines but you've been doing it for some time, Justin you had Jay Jay Pistolet of course.

Justin: I did and Arni played in that project as well. And even a year before we put If You wanna up on line we were writing songs for the band so were a year older than people think we are. I did my first tour 7 years before The Vaccines. It certainly wasn't meteoric for us as individuals but as a band the stars just aligned and everything fell into place but that's cos of the hard work and the lessons that had been learned proceeding that.

SS: There is some backlash about the quickness of it all but the quality of the music stands there on it's own.

Arni: That's were we got lucky because there's no story attached. There's no mystery about us. It was just people talking about the actual music.

Justin: I think the music just speaks for itself. Thankfully we've got this kind of sound that speaks to enough people and connects to enough people that it doesn't really matter, it's funny cos I don't think there are any more people who dislike The Vaccines than any other band I just think they felt they had to be more vocal because of the way we came about. We survived that and there are always gonna be people who dislike what you do. The more people that like you the more people will dislike you.

SS: Speaking of the feel and the sound of the band, there seems to be kinda a fifties feel to what you do. Stuff like Teenage Icon obviously with the Frankie Avalon reference, but new single I Always Knew could be a fifties song. The guitar in it has that feel.

Justin: It's the embodiment of everything we like about music. The directness, the simplicity, the naivety, the youthfulness, the rebellion.

SS: Like Eddie Cochrane.

Justin: Exactly. It's pop music and rock n roll music in it's purest sense. I mean that in terms of the music and the people that were playing it. That's were it all starts, bastardised along the way, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Arni: Exactly. That's were it starts. That's the birth of pop.I think any musical genre is most interesting in it's primal state.

SS: I think it was you Justin said in a recent interview you're not a big fan of collaborations, certainly in the studio, but you do have quite a few people join you live on stage. Ryan from the Cribs, members of The Savages, Franz Ferdinand, of course The Horrors, Tom Being Freddie's brother. Would you ever collaborate in the studio or is it just something that doesn't appeal?

Justin: It's certainly something we'd consider. People often ask us who's our ideal collaboration and despite how often I spend listening to music, and the amount of people I admire, I don't think there's anyone I've ever thought I'd love to collaborate with. I think until the opportunity arises, for example, I never would've thought I'd love to collaborate with Albert Hammond Jr but then when he said let's do a song in the studio of course we were like yeah, definitely cos were massive fans. It's just not something I really think about. When you start a band you pick the people you want to collaborate with really.

SS: I saw a review when you first hit the scene that called you The UK Strokes. That's just lazy though.

Justin: Yeah we got a few of those.

SS: You're doing a dj set at Social Bar later. Is that all 4 of you? Freddie and Pete as well?

Justin: We're all coming down.

Arni: We haven't worked out who's djing yet.

SS: On your website you've posted tracks by people like Richard Hell and Jonathan Richman. Can we expect that tonight? Have you got a setlist sorted?

Justin: We normally just wing it. Maybe Freddie was working on it earlier. It's a fun way to meet people and see the town. You can learn a lot more about a place by immersing yourself in it.

Arni: It's a Friday night. Anything could happen.

My daughter, George, and Justin than spoke at length about Frank Turner while I eyed up the roast chicken.

And we said are goodbyes. The Vaccines went on to do what they do best and turned The Dome into one big mosh pit. I went home sweaty, broken and very happy. And deaf!

The Vaccines Setlist

No Hope
Wreckin' Bar
Tiger Blood
A Lack of Understanding
Wetsuit
Change Of Heart
Teenage Icon
Under Your Thumb
Ghost Town
Post Break Up Sex
All In White
Aftershave Ocean
Blow It Up
I Always Knew
If You Wanna
Bad Mood
Wolf Pack
Norgaard

Friday 23 November 2012

BAIBS FRIDAY 23/11/12

I don't have an exact date. I can you give you an exact date. 24th June 1974 is an exact date. Maybe I should have started with a different sentence. I've been doing the Sine FM Bigger All Important Breakfast Show for 3 years. I started November 2009 but, ahem, I don't have an exact date. 3 of us doing it to start with, then 4, then 3, then 4, then 3, then 2 and now 1! In those 3 years I've had 3 complaints. Poor effort really. 1st one was for comparing oysters to phlegm. I stand by that one. I did actually stand by an oyster once. Not the greatest conversation I've ever had. 

Anyway, complaint number 3 came in today after I told listeners not to see Simple Minds live. I've seen them, didn't rate them. Doesn't mean I'm right. I am as it happens but that's not the point. Maybe that is the point. Confused myself now. Either way I don't think Jim Kerr's gonna be fretting too much over it. The crux of the complaint was they've been around 30 years so they must be good. In the studio maybe, just not live. IN MY OPINION. And herpes has been around for a lot longer, doesn't make it good. 

Hectic weekend ahead. Tonight The Vaccines live at The Dome and I'm still waiting on THAT call!  Tom Hark day at the Keepmoat tomorrow, Rovers v Scunny. Gotta fancy a home win. It's a bit overdue. Famous Villains playing pitch side before tomorrow's game. That's worth the entrance fee alone. Saturday night it's The 48ks, Dirty White Cars and Pete Liversidge at The Flying Childers. Sunday is sleep! 

Just got THAT call. Dome at 5.15 tonight to chat with Justin and Arni from The Vaccines. It'll be fine. Me and Justin have the same hairdresser. 

Hope I'm not speaking too soon but THE WAR IS OVER! Elmfield Park this morning and not even signs of a skirmish. DMBC nowhere in sight and the leaves, still there in numbers, but staying off the paths. Hopefully this truce will hold. Not such good news from Balby were DMBC seem to have adopted a different approach. Spraying the leaves. I don't know with what, but I fear it will only antagonize them. Different operative in Balby this morning. I presume the tree hater has been put on non tree related duties. 

Laters

SS

Playlist Friday 23/11/12

Country Girl - Primal Scream
You Stole The Sun - Manic Street Preachers
Semi Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
Hunger - Frankie and the Heartstrings
Not Too Young - The Tricks
Black Chandelier - Biffy Clyro
Antarctica - Sound Of Guns
There She Goes - The Las
Right Now - Bang Bang Romeo
If You Leave - OMD
Is This Our Day In The Sunshine - Section 60
I'll Be Fine - White Valentine
Behind The Wall Of Sleep - The Smithereens
Tempted - Squeeze
Monkeyman - Toots and the Maytals
Transmission - Joy Division
Losing My Religion - REM
Wetsuit - The Vaccines
I Always Knew - The Vaccines
I Don't Wanna Grow Up - The Ramones
Love And Pride - King
Moving - Supergrass
Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations
Dead And Gone - The Black Keys
The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys
Alive And Kicking - Simple Minds
Best Of You - Foo Fighters
My Girl - Madness
(All I Wanted Was) Danger - The Milk
Pure - The Lightning Seeds
I Love Rock 'n' Roll - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Millionaires - Famous Villains
Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Bob Dylan
Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
Hate To Say I Told You So - The Hives
Gangsters - The Specials


Thursday 22 November 2012

BAIBS Thursday 22/11/12

Well this blog seems to be attracting some interesting followers. Modesty forbids me from saying who. I'm a very modest person. My millions of adoring fans tell me everyday how wonderfully modest I am. Let's just say a published author, a published poet and a lady who's son cooks in a cottage by a river have praised this here blog. It means a lot, I am truly overwhelmed which got me thinking: overwhelmed. Confusing word. Time to reach for the dictionary.

Why do we say that? Reach for the dictionary. Reach for the rule book, etc. What are the chances that when we need such items they're in reaching distance? I have ridiculously long arms and nothing like that is in reaching distance. Laptop, phone, cigarettes, coffee, cough medicine, fat Winnie The Pooh, socks. All of these are in reaching distance as we speak. None of these know the definition of overwhelming. So bare with me as I put a dictionary within reaching distance.

Thanks to the Cambridge online dictionary. (It was in reaching distance)

Overwhelm: verb (emotion - usually passive): To cause someone sudden strong emotion.

on that note

Underwhelmed: adjective. Feeling no excitement about or admiration for something or someone.

I get it. So can you just be whelmed? Dictionary again.

Whelm: noun. A soft sea animal, similar to a snail, that lives in a hard shell.

Think either me or the dictionary have gone wrong there.

Today is what I love about my job. Well, it's not really a job in so much I don't get paid and love every second of it. Most proper jobs I get paid but hate every second. Today's show just flowed, 3 hours flew by, lots of feedback on how much people enjoyed it. I've said so many times I just play tunes I like (with the exception of Poison yesterday - a request that slipped through the net) and hope I'm not the only one. But more than that I get to play, and work with, bands I'd probably never hear otherwise. This is the real joy for me. To discover for myself than share the likes of Doncaster bands Bang Bang Romeo, Famous Villains, The Pilots, The 48ks, Gbone and more and hopefully in some way help those bands, that is what gives me the most pleasure. Or out of town bands like New Killer Shoes, Section 60, The Tricks, The Sherlocks and again many more. There's some outstanding music out there. The Tricks for example are a brilliant band from London who tour their arses off and deserve any help, albeit small, I can offer. Got them some live radio arranged for tonight before their gig at The Leopard. (Tune in from about 6.30). Enough gushing.

Leaf War update: An uneasy silence in Elmfield Park this morning. Nothing stirred. The leaves were lined up either side of the path. The odd leaf on patrol but nothing major. Then I saw it, the council van lurking behind a hedge. I don't know if a van can lurk but, no, sorry, this van was definitely lurking. It was either a ceasefire or both sides had withdrawn waiting on the enemy to make the next move. I'll be honest it didn't feel like peace. I'm expecting carnage tomorrow. Watch this space.

Laters

SS

Playlist Thursday 22/11/12

Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire
Hersham Boys - Sham 69
Take Her Back - The Pigeon Detectives
Like A Dancer - The Enemy
Baba O'Riley - The Who
You Held The World In Your Arms - Idlewild
On Trial - The Tricks
Post Break Up Sex - The Vaccines
Unbelievable - EMF
VPL - Gbone
The Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
Church Not Made With Hands - The Waterboys
Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain
The Return Of The Los Palmos 7 - Madness
Elysium - Section 60
68 Guns - The Alarm
My Very Favourite Stalker - The Adulescents UK
Golden Skans - Klaxon
Into The Valley - The Skids
Eton Rifles - The Jam
Time For Action - Secret Affair
Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen
Hunger - Frankie and the Heartstrings
Dear Prudence - Siouxsie and the Banshees
Sultans Of Swing -Dire Straits
Deer Caught In The Headlights - The Wedding Present
Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
Feel It Up - Clockwork Radio
Forbidden Colours - Sylvian/Sakamoto
Balloons - Foals
Chi-Town - The Cribs
Uprising - Muse
Rat Trap - The Boomtown Rats
Wild Wild Life - Talking Heads
Genius Of Love - Tom Tom Club
Love Her Madly - The Doors
Champagne and Cocaine - 12 Dirty Bullets
Seven Seas - Echo and the Bunnymen

Wednesday 21 November 2012

BAIBS Wednesday 21/11/12

Christmas. Still a month away but it's everywhere. I'm a bloke, I start thinking Christmas on December 1st. I start shopping for Christmas on December 24th. The lights are up and on in Donny. Have been a week now which ain't bad for Donny. I remember lights up in September once. At least wait til the clocks move, think of the electric.

The Christmas tree on Goose Hill (outside Primark) looks brilliant this year. It's always been tastefully decorated but not this year. It's like everyone's tree when you let the kids decorate it and they throw everything on it. Then when they've gone to bed you take off half the tinsel, baubles and hanging sheep and do it 'properly'. To be honest I used to do the tree then my kids would do it tastefully after I'd gone to bed. I'm definitely a chuck it all on type. I like tacky chintz at Christmas. And this is what the Goose Hill tree looks like. Some council employee has got on his cherry picker and dropped every set of lights in Donny on it. Brilliant!! Anyway, that's Christmas back in it's box for 10 days til I can start playing The Pogues and have my annual slagging Chris Rea off session. And get away with playing The Wombles. I love The Wombles but that's a whole different blog.

People keep telling me I should write a book. I would but wouldn't know where to start. A book needs a beginning, middle and end. Apart from Stephen Hawkins' A Brief History Of Time. That just needs a beginning and a little bit of middle. If it had an end we wouldn't be here. Saying that I don't know anyone who's managed to read it all so just a beginning and lots of blank pages would suffice. Save on printing costs too.

Back to the point, I do tend to go off on tangents. I like tangents. Such a good word. I imagine a tangent to be orange. A pale orange, nothing too harsh. Er, where was I? Beginning, middle and end. I don't have any. Not in that order anyway.

So the council have moved out of the building behind Sine FM Towers. No more 'you can't park there' now they don't need the car park. Except they now have someone checking the empty car park saying 'you can't park there'. Thanks! Doesn't really affect me though. I don't drive. For one very good reason: I can't drive. I tell people this, 44 year old bloke can't drive, and they look at me as if I've just handed them a badger. It happens! The not driving thing, I've never seen anyone hand over a badger.

I may sound a bit harsh on DMBC over The Leaf War Of Elmfield Park (2012 - 2013). I appreciate there are many parks in Donny, therefore many trees and therefore many, many leaves and only a finite number of people to poke the leaves and it would appear only one Dyson World Dominating Vacuum (patent pending) that they have to share. It was Balby's turn yesterday. Only 1 bloke but he'd mastered the Dyson WDP. Too well. He done the grass and was starting on the trees themselves. Get the leaves at source so to speak. He did it with a look that made me think he'd been chased by a tree when he was a child. I have the same look when I see a Jack Russell. (Never did like Gloucestershire wicket keepers - one for Mr. Pierce there). Anyway the park on Balby road is a branch free zone now.

Proper work to do now. Vaccines interview on Friday and I want a better question than why are you called The Vaccines.

Laters

SS

Playlist Wednesday 21/11/12

Broke Up The Family - The Milk
London Calling - The Clash
Smooth - New Killer Shoes
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Hysteria - Muse
Burn This City - Famous Villains
The Way We're Made (Made In England) - Missing Andy
Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall - Coldplay
Love Suite - James Foy
524 Fidelio - The Wedding Present
Brilliant Mind - Furniture
I Am The Resurrection - The Stone Roses
Hey Ya - OutKast
What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
Stingin' Belle - Biffy Clyro
Starman - David Bowie
Every Rose Has It's Thorn - Poison
Birthday - Sugarcubes
Venus As A Boy - Bjork
Temptation - New Order
We Wear Our Bones - Bang Bang Romeo
Dead Wrong - Hanni El Khatib
Geno - Dexy's Midnight Runners
I Always Knew - The Vaccines
I'm Waiting For The Man - Velvet Underground
The KKK Took My Baby Away - The Ramones
Einstein A Go-Go - Landscape
E=MC2 - Big Audio Dynamite
Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
Chemicals - Various Cruelties
Come Home - James
Bring On The Dancing Horses - Echo and the Bunnymen
The Messenger - Johnny Marr
Undercover Martyn - Two Door Cinema Club
Girls And Boys - Blur
On Trial - The Tricks
Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club
Run Right Back - The Black Keys
To Be Like - China Rats

Tuesday 20 November 2012

BAIBS Tuesday 20/11/12

People ask me what does the average day of a breakfast show host consist of? This is a lie. No-one's ever asked me that. But poetic licence etc etc. Anyway, my alarm goes off at half 5 and then it's snooze button time. Another lie. I don't have a snooze button. I lie there hoping part of me will  get out of bed then I'll follow and wondering why a man with a clinically proven allergy (another lie) to mornings does a breakfast show. The answer to that is ego. I'm heading somewhere with this but going totally in the wrong direction.

Skip a bit. I'm up, coffee and cigarette. Filthy habit but I like caffeine. First thing I do is facebook, don't we all? It's mainly to post the 'live at 7' status. I do this purely so that people know I have, for a change, got out of my pit and will be doing a show. My pit's warm and full of Cherry Blossom so it's a real drag. I'm getting to the point now. Actually I've just remembered my point hence me nearly being there.

Logged on to facebook this morning to be greeted with a photo of my eldest daughter, George, with Frank Turner. Frank Turner, star of Olympic opening ceremony and finest British singer/songwriter since Billy Bragg. Pictured with my daughter. When the photo was took I was asleep! Something wrong here surely?

You'd think but it's not the first time! About 18 months ago I was awoke by my phone beeping, about 11.30pm. A photo of George with Frank Turner in Nottingham. I'm meant to be the gig goer in this family!

Apparently Frank tore Sheffield O2 apart last night while I slept. I'm ready for my Horlicks now. Oh and George gets to meet The Vaccines on Friday. Coolest kid in school?

I ranted on yesterday's show about The Vaccines management pulling the plug on the interview I'd hopefully set up. Got home to an email with interview arrangements. Apologies all round!  In fact I've just had to break from this cos they've just emailed me again. OK how many times can I say sorry!

Going back to the original day in the life of theme I do the show, come home and write this. That's it.

Leaf war update: DMBC haven't given up the fight as previously stated. A tactical withdrawal maybe? They've come back fighting with 3 men at it now. With spikes!! I fear the worst. Elmfield Park remains orange for the foreseeable future.

Milk's boiled, Horlicks time.

Laters

SS

Playlist Tuesday 20/11/12

I Still Believe - Frank Turner
Touch Me - The Doors
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song - Flaming Lips
Adultery - Little Comets
I Always Knew - The Vaccines
Let's Dance To Joy Division - The Wombats
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Second, Minute Or Hour - Jack Penate
It Must Be Love - Madness
God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols
Antarctica - Sound Of Guns
Adore Me Dear - Bang Bang Romeo
Like A Dancer - The Enemy
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
Live Forever - Oasis
Bucket - Kings Of Leon
Salamander - Will and the People
Freakin' Out - Graham Coxon
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel
High On A Hill - Ian McNabb
Hold On - Alabama Shakes
Local Boy In The Photograph - Stereophonics
Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies
Fairytale Of New York - The Pogues
Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Can You Dig It? - The Mock Turtles
Reputation - Section 60
Gallows Pole - Led Zeppelin
Lead The Way - The 48ks
Lightning Bolt - Jake Bugg
Best Of My Love - The Eagles
Just Like A Woman - Black Spiders
I'm In Love With A German Film Star - The Passions
I Saw You Blink - Stornoway
Sabotage - Beastie Boys
Fleet - Guillemots
Chevy Thunder - Spector
Sun - Two Door Cinema Club
Why You Looking Back Down - You Addiction


Monday 19 November 2012

BAIBS Monday 19/11/12

As regular readers will know I try to keep this mostly flippant. The odd serious comment may slip through the flip-filter but not many which makes this such a hard blog to write today.

This weekend my good friend Peter Meredith passed away. A devoted husband and father and a loyal and true friend. Certain people make you feel better about yourself without even trying. Just 5 minutes with Yorkshire Pete and I'd walk away smiling, feeling good about, well, everything. I can honestly say I never saw Pete without the biggest grin on his face. It was infectious.

When myself and, Pete's best friend, Mark Kelly did the record breaking biggest show ever Pete was our rock. Of the 72 hours we did Pete was there for well over half that time. Stepping in on our breaks but more importantly keeping us going, whether it was nudging us awake, fetching honey and lemon drinks or just generally keeping our spirits up. He did it magnificently and without him we wouldn't have managed it. Pete is , hand on my heart, one of the funniest, genuine, most selfless people it has ever been my privilege to know.

This may be a 'you had to be there' thing but it makes me laugh every time I think about it. Final stretch of the biggest show and me and Mark are worse for wear. Probably about 2am on the Thursday morning. 66 hours done, 6 to go. The studio littered with cans of Red Bull. (Other energy drinks are available). Mark decides to rip his fingernails off, depositing said nails in one of the many cans. I reach for a drink. Wrong can.  Mouth full of Mark's fingernails. I look up hoping no-one noticed. Pete's looking at me in tears, desperately muffling his laughter. He'd seen it all unfold. I caught his eye and that was me gone. Mark still trying to be professional as ever while me and Pete rolled around hysterically.

As a presenter Pete was a huge asset to The Home Run Show. As a friend he's irreplaceable.

Goodbye My Friend

Playlist Monday 19/11/12

Goodbye My Friend - White Valentine
Never Fade Away - Spector
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
Design For Life - Manic Street Preachers
Men's Needs - The Cribs
Millionaires - Famous Villains
Souls Uncensored - Section 60
When It All Comes Down - The Icicle Works
My Very Favourite Stalker - The Adulescents UK
After Hours - We Are Scientists
I Always Knew - The Vaccines
Underdog - Kasabian
Star - James
My First Love - Paper Aeroplanes
Best Of Friends - Palma Violets
Back To Black - Amy Winehouse
Right Now - Bang Bang Romeo
Video Killed The Radio Star - The Buggles
Wrecking Ball - Bruce Springsteen
Pretty Vacant - Sex Pistols
Emily's Heart - Jamie T
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
Inhaler - Foals
10/10 - Paulo Nutini
To Be Like - China Rats
What You Do To Me - Teenage Fanclub
Sound Of The Suburbs - The Members
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Sun - Two Door Cinema Club
Up The Junction - Squeeze
I Don't Feel Amazing Now - The Guillemots
Slumdog Millionaire - The Beeds
The Messenger - Johnny Marr
Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Song Away - Hockey
Somewhere - The Pilots
Shakespeare's Sister - The Smiths
Brother's In Arms - Dire Straits
Hi Ho Silver Lining - Jeff Beck

Friday 16 November 2012

Dave Gedge Interview. Sheffield Leadmill 13/11/12

The Wedding Present open their set with End Credits. I like that for so many reasons, mostly cos it's a great tune but it also just fits with how I've always seen The Wedding Present and Dave Gedge's staunch refusal to do what's expected of our music industry stars. Therein is the point. Dave Gedge isn't a star and I doubt he ever wanted to be. He's a musician and one of the finest this country's ever produced.

I was ill on Tuesday and probably should've stayed in bed. I once saw an interview with Joe Strummer talking about The Pogues and why, though he had flu, he'd come out to see them live. 'Staying in bed when The Pogues are in town? That's a mad man thing to do.' That's how I felt about The Wedding Present Tuesday night. Plus Dave Gedge had kindly consented to an interview and offered guest list spots all for a comic book! I was lucky enough to catch The Wedding Present soundchecking and recording an exclusive video for The Mouth Magazine. They sounded amazing. Check it out here.

http://themouthmagazine.wordpress.com/

Dave Gedge Interview.

SS: Sounding absolutely brilliant out there.A lot rockier than last time I saw you.

DG: Rockier? Yeah, it's a couple of things. Cos we're doing Seamonsters so we're in a rockier mode but also I think this line up is probably the rockiest line up we've ever had. It changes all the time. You get new members in and they bring something different to the band but it's just by chance more than anything that this line up seems to be rockier.

SS: So you've toured George Best, you've toured Bizarro, now you're touring Seamonsters. Does that mean we'll get another 5 tours at least for the other studio albums?

DG: Seems to be the way it's going.

SS: Was it a deliberate thing to tour the albums in order or is it just what you felt like playing at the time?

DG: I didn't really feel like doing it at the time. 2007 was the 20th anniversary of George Best and a label called Sanctuary, who sadly don't exist any more wanted to do a 20th anniversary re-release of it. And it was their idea actually, why don't you play it live? And I said no, I don't fancy that at all because obviously as an artist you're thinking about your new songs and the next album and moving forward, but everybody I spoke to, the band at the time, friends and fans all said I'd love to see you play George Best. So I said OK we'll try it and to my kinda surprise really I actually found it an interesting project, it's a bit surreal really to go back 20 years and look at what you were doing at that point and then kinda re-analyse it and re-invent it in a way.

SS: Cos I've always found The Wedding Present, more than most bands to me, don't sound dated in any way.

DG: I'd kinda dispute that. Of all the albums I think George Best sounds the most dated.

SS: And Bizarro?

DG: Well it's funny you should say that cos after we did George Best, and I kinda enjoyed it, and it's actually my least favourite album, I felt then we really should probably do Bizarro. So then it was well let's do Seamonsters. So by default almost we seem to be working our way through them now.

SS: You famously released a single a month in 1992.

DG: The Hit Parade.

SS: Would you tour The Hit Parade albums?

DG: I think so, yeah. To be honest we've already decided to do that. We're playing in North America early next year then Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the idea there is to do The Hit Parade so there's no reason why we couldn't do it over here as well.

SS: Speaking of New Zealand you did a cover on the 2001 Seamonsters re-issue of New Zealand Band The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience

DG: It was actually the B-side to one of the singles and the re-issue included B-sides

SS: How do you come up with covers, cos someone like The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, not many people outside of New Zealand would have heard of?

DG: Occasionally we'll hear something, I think it was probably our bass player at the time, Keith Gregory, who suggested that one. He just played it, we thought it was interesting so we had a go at it. There's no real process or reason behind it, it's just totally random.

SS: Any covers in tonight's set?

DG: We do do covers occasionally, not tonight obviously with Seamonsters being quite a big portion of the set, it doesn't leave much space. Well it leaves 40 minutes but it's kind of a weird tour this one cos it's Seamonsters but then it's Valentina as well. So we'll probably do 3 or 4 of them as well. It was gonna be a Valentina tour but I thought at some point I want to do Seamonsters, and it was should I do it next year, or the year after then I thought why cant we do it now and just combine it. We play for 85 minutes so Seamonsters is only half of that.

SS: So do you get more of a thrill from playing the new songs or do you still enjoy the buzz from playing something like Kennedy when the crowd really goes for it?

DG: I think if you play a song a lot you can get a bit jaded with it so you drop it from the set for a while and when it comes back a few years later it's fresh and exciting. To be honest we don't really tend to play songs a lot because, well there's plenty to choose from really. You say Kennedy but there's no kind of songs that have to be there. OK Kennedy and Brassneck are more well known but then so's Dalliance, My Favourite Dress, there's loads...

SS: Corduroy

DG: Which you will hear tonight. There's plenty to go at.

SS: So was there ever a time, kinda like when you were doing Cineramo, that you thought there wouldn't be any more Wedding Present or was it always on the back burner?

DG: Well it's funny you should say that, when we started doing Cineramo, in 1997 I think, I originally thought it would be a short project, 6 or 8 months, but I did enjoy doing it, writing all the stuff myself, doing all the orchestral work so it kinda expanded into 8 years. At that point I was thinking at the back of my mind will The Wedding Present ever do anymore but at the same time, almost subconsciously it was sounding more like The Wedding Present.

SS: Was it Take Fountain you were recording and thought this is more Wedding Present?

DG: Totally. It crept up on us really. The guitarist in Cineramo was also the guitarist in The Wedding Present before, and he started writing more and it became more guitar based so by the time it came to Take Fountain it was almost as if the two bands had merged together.

SS: 18 members I think since you formed in 85, you're obviously the only constant member, would there ever be a solo Dave Gedge project or would it always come under The Wedding Present banner?

DG: Well Cineramo was at the time cos when I started doing that it was just me on my own, with my girlfriend at the time. For the first LP we just got random musicians in so it wasn't a band as such but then it became a band to play live with so that was my little solo project really.

SS: I read in an interview recently that you don't actually enjoy this. Is that true?

DG: Well kind of. People always say you must love your job and I don't really. I find it quite hard work.

SS: I guess as a touring band as well you don't really have a base as such which must be hard.

DG: No, it's one reason why we've had so many line-up changes. It sounds great, I'm off to America, I'm off to Japan, I'm Off to Australia, I'm playing music for a living. And it is great but then the third time you do it starts wearing thin and you miss your friends at home and you miss your girlfriend or boyfriend and I think after a while, some people last 4 years, some people 12 years. I'm the only one, and it's different for me cos obviously it's my baby, I'm willing to give up more.

SS: Do you think you'll ever reach a point when you'll stop doing it?

DG: Yes, it's weird again. Kinda yes and no. Obviously there will be a point.

SS: You're not gonna do a Rolling Stones and keep going for fifty years?

DG: I wouldn't have thought so but I've been doing it 25 years already, and that's flown past really. I wouldn't like to put a date on it.

SS: You've never played the record company game, from the early days when you had the big companies chasing you, and you decided no, I'm gonna do it myself. You were really a fore runner to the way the business works now. So many up and coming bands have the must get signed, must get signed thing going on and record companies don't work like that anymore.

DG: Well there's no record labels left to sign them really. It's kinda come full circle were everybody's like that now. like I was back then.

SS: So you'd recommend bands self finance themselves?

DG: Well it's worked for me but I don't think they have a choice anymore. Every year there's less labels and they just want people who can make money for them. Nowadays if you don't have a hit in the first year that's it.


A massive thank you again To Dave Gedge for agreeing to waste his precious time with me and I really hope he didn't get my manflu.

Simon Saynor

Tuesday 13 November 2012

BAIBS Tuesday 13/11/12

Short blog today. Time is of the essence. I'll be honest, I don't know what that means. Essence of what? Only essence that springs to mind is vanilla essence and I don't see what that has to do with time.Maybe it's meant to be thyme? Can you get thyme essence? Still don't see the relevance though. Basically I've a million and one things to do and not much time to do it in so waffling about essence isn't helping.

OK, maybe not a million and one. More like three or four things to do before I have to be in Sheffield at 5pm but given I had one task yesterday, buy a lightbulb, and I failed you may see the problem. Sheffield at 5pm to interview Dave Gedge from the awesome Wedding Present before tonight's Leadmill gig. I have the questions planned and the Cherry Blossom kindly bought me a dictaphone for the interview. Go on, get you're innuendos in now.

Finished?

Good. I've loved The Wedding Present since flinging myself around at Ritzy on a Thursday night to Kennedy so am I a little nervous about tonight. I'm wondering if I've still got the moves knowing full well I haven't. I'm wondering if I'm gonna freeze in the interview and just say 'I love you.' Very embarrassing. Still, check this blog tomorrow to see how it went. If it was really bad I'll just lie.

Followers will be pleased to know the manflu hasn't totally kicked in yet. Tomorrow I'm guessing. Apologies now if the rest of The Weddoes tour is cancelled cos the boy Gedge has a cold.

Was stopped by a Sainsbury's delivery man on the way into Sine FM Towers this morning. I knew this is what he was cos he was in a big orange truck that said Sainsbury's on the side and he asked me if I knew where Sainsbury's was. I pointed out to him the delivery entrance 50 yards away. 'Not that one' he said. 'So which one then?' I asked. 'I don't know.' he replied. Brilliant. I relayed all the Sainsbury's I knew, realized one was a Tesco and back tracked a bit. He thanked me by saying 'You're no help.' Lovely. International day Of Kindness today as well.

DMBC would appear to have conceded defeat in the Leaf Battle Of Elmfield Park. Two days on the trot now there's been no-one rushing headlong into battle armed with rake or Dyson World Domination Vacuum (patent pending). In their absence the leaves have taken up tactically superior positions and I fear the worst.

Anyway, must dash. A million and one things to do. Apparently. Ish.

Laters

SS

Playlist Tuesday 13/11/12

Kennedy - The Wedding Present
45 - Gaslight Anthem
Millionaires - Famous Villains
(All I Wanted Was) Danger - The Milk
Blood - The Editors
Right Now - Bang Bang Romeo
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen
Sing For The Deaf - Missing Andy
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover - Paul Simon
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais - The Clash
Keep The Car Running - Arcade Fire
Lucy The Castle - Twisted Wheel
Stay Beautiful - Manic Street Preachers
Open Your Eyes - Snow Patrol
Tumblin Tears - Kiziah and the Kings
Jump - Van Halen
Baby Don't Cry - INXS
Alright - The Subways
Rose Tattoo - Dropkick Murphys
Waterfall - The Stone Roses
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Could You Be Loved - Bob Marley
Crash - The Primitives
Chipping Away - Middleman
Spirits In The Material World - The Police
L.A. Woman - The Doors
Do Nothing - Specials
Stray Heart - Green Day
Honky Tonk Woman - Rolling Stones
Since Yesterday - Strawberry Switchblade
You Jane - The Wedding Present
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah - The Pogues
By The Way - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Whatever You Want - Status Quo
Honey From A Knife - The Cult
By Your Hand - Los Campesinos
Maggie May - Rod Stewart
To Be Like - China Rats

Monday 12 November 2012

BAIBS Monday 12/11/12

Right, some bugger's drank my coffee. Just sat down to write this, gone for a slurp and the mug is empty! Off to put the kettle on. Back in 2.

Footwear. I mentioned on Friday the need for footwear. It's becoming desperate. I've never been a big fan of my toes but now the feeling's definitely mutual. They're one bad frost away from the Ranulph Fiennes black n decker treatment. I know what I want: Cheap, comfy and don't make me look like I have clown's feet. The last one's not so easy. But I cant find any anywhere and now I have a cold coming, I blame my toes, so wont be shopping today. I already have to trek to the shop for a lightbulb, that's enough for a man with a cold. I say cold, I'm still at the sniffling stage. Mark my words though, tomorrow it'll be full on manflu.

Manflu. It's a real thing. I know, I've had it. Some Austrian scientist proved it's existence last year. A female scientist too so it must be true. Sadly I cant find any evidence of this and feel I may have dreamed it. Possibly while delirious cos of manflu.

Friday night found me and the Cherry Blossom at The Maze in Nottingham to see the mighty Black Spiders. They rock. In so many ways. Chances of them playing a venue that small again is slim. The place was a sweaty mess of hair and bleeding ears. Debut album Sons Of The North is a masterpiece of unadulterated pure rock at it's finest yet you don't get the full power of the band til you see them live. Pete's vocals above the three pronged guitar attack are just mesmerizing. Backed by Adam and Si's tightly bound, pounding rhythm section it feels nasty and dirty. It's brilliant! Drummer Tiger Si is genuinely frightening on stage, a snarling blur demanding as much energy back from the crowd. He always gets it. Off stage he's one of the nicest blokes you could wish to meet. A new album is promised next year. From the new tracks they played, particularly Creatures, it's gonna be epic.

Saturday at the Keepmoat and the Tom Hark button remained unused again. 3 strikers, 1 shot on target. Still, me and Rob had our photo took for the programme. I was doing a catalogue pose unaware that it was a one shot affair, bit like Rovers on the pitch, so that's the photo they're going with. Highlight of the day was the luminous mini pasty. Rob had started writing my eulogy just in case but it was only a samosa in disguise.

Sunday at the War Memorial with number one daughter, George. I chose to ignore the twonk next to me in the EDL hat. That's an argument for another time. Then off for Sunday dinner - all you can eat chinese, works for me. Didn't realize there'd be all you can eat cake too. The new jeans are struggling still.

So today involves buying a lightbulb, sneezing and either Cherry Blossom's dress rehearsal, Famous Villains and The Pilots live at SOYO or taking to my bed preparing my 'I'm over the worst' speech.

Laters

SS

Playlist Monday 12/11/12

Just Like A Woman - Black Spiders
What A Day That Was - Talking Heads
In Between Days - The Cure
Elysium - Section 60
Jeremy - Pearl Jam
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - The Smiths
Aint Even Done With The Night - John Mellencamp
Ready To Die - Famous Villains
Corduroy - The Wedding Present
524 Fidelio - The Wedding Present
Hit The North - The Fall
Sitting On My Own - The 48ks
When It All Comes Down - The Icicle Works
Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones
St. Peter - Black Spiders
Kiss Tried To Kill Me - Black Spiders
Antarctica - Sound Of Guns
Buck Rogers - Feeder
Teenage Icon - The Vaccines
Animal Nitrate - Suede
This Is Real - The Enemy
Playground Superstar - Happy Mondays
Inhaler - Foals
Smooth - New Killer Shoes
What You Do To Me - Teenage Fanclub
Mens Needs - The Cribs
So You Win Again - Hot Chocolate
I Can't Explain - The Who
Missing Words - The Selector
Time For Action - Secret Affair
Be My Yoko Ono - Barenaked Ladies
Up The Junction - Squeeze
After Hours - We Are Scientists
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
American Dream - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Harvest Moon - Neil Young
Here Comes Your Man - Pixies
You Overdid It Doll - The Courteneers
Town Called Malice - The Jam