The Rookies - Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Band

Sounds like its all going well for you guys.

Have you added any football tunes into the set yet? haha.

We could do that one that goes "Vindaloo, vindaloo, vindaloo, vindaloo, nah nah!" The trouble is I don't think anyone has ever written a good football song. Three Lions On Your Shirt is the closest, but even that's not too good.

Ted dragged himself out of his sick-bed to come to rehearsal last night, and it was a good one. Roll With It is sounding good, but that is really hard to sing. I've had to find some odd places to draw breath, otherwise you could get to the end without ever drawing breath (well, plainly you couldn't, but .....). So I have to sing:

You gotta (breathe) roll with it, you gotta (breathe) take your time, you gotta (breathe) say what you say, don't let any body get in your way 'cos it's all too much for me to take (big deep breath!)

The alternative is being very quiet and blue in the face, like some sort of asthmatic Smurf, by the end of it. I could REALLY do with some vocal coaching, but I can't find anybody local to do it. I contacted a couple of singing teachers by Email, but they never replied. I know they might not do rock singing, but they might have replied and told me that. Ah, well!

I also tried out my nice new Shubb capo, which is just brilliant! If you're using a capo, and it's one of those ones with a strap on, ditch it and get a Shubb (or a Chubb, as Paul keeps calling it! I old him, I want to change the pitch of the guitar, not lock it up, ha ha!) it's really quick to put on, doesn't press the strings too much, so you don't need to re-tune, and it's small enough to not get in the way too much. £15 well spent!

I also bought one of those rubber plugs to go in the soundhole of my acoustic guitar to (supoosedly) stop it feeding back when amplified. Has anyone out there ever used one of them? Does it work well? I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

It looks like my step-daughter's wedding is set ofr July next year, now, so we're booked for that. I must get her dad up to do a number with us. We're also probably going to do a party at a mate's house in October (out-doors, in October?) which should be good (if a little chilly). Both these should be good because there'll be quite a young crowd, so hopefully lots of dancing. The old folks are good fun and get up to dance quite a bit, but the clicking of artificial hip joints really screws up your sense of rhythm, ha ha!

Rehearsal again tonight, and the stop-press is we have two more gigs in the offing. One is at the George Inn in Thruxton on Sep 18th - our first pub gig - eeeeeek! Then we might be doing a charity gig on October 22nd for a lady we know who's going to the North Pole for charity. (I went down the pub for charity, but no-one would sponsor me)

I might also do the blues jam night again in a couple of weeks. The mate I went down last time with (who refused to get up and play, despite me offering to lend him Frankie, my number one SG, for the occasion) says he'll play if I rehearse a couple of numbers with him (kind of negates the "jam" aspect of it, but still ......) it was a good night, though, so I'm up for it again. I'd hate to go every month, but occasionally is good fun.

No Ted last night but we rolled out our new secret weapon - my stepdaughter, who has the most STUNNING voice and puts me to shame. She started off very hesitant and shy, but once she got into her stride there was no stopping her. The highlights were Knocking on Heavens Door and Dakota, both of which went to a new level with her sharing vocals.

I love the summer holidays. The room we rehearse in isn't being used by the school, so we can leave the drums, PA, amps, etc. in the room. This means I only take my guitar and my ever-growing folder of song lyrics with me. Hell, I could even walk and drink more beer than usual, ha ha!

We're due to play at the George at Thruxton on Sep 18th, but Charlie is a bit worried that the area they've said we can play in is too small ....

"We would play in Joe's Garage,
There was just enough room to cram the drums,
In a corner over by the Dodge,
It was a 64 with a mashed up door,
And a cheesy little amp,
Witha sign on the front said Fender Champ,
And a second hand guitar,
It was Stratocaster with a whammy bar!"

I need artist, song and album for 3 points, ha ha!

Anyway, we were going to do a reccy this evening (and have a beer, of course) but then Charlie's wife rang to ask if they could borrow some stuff as they were going camping today, so I figured at that point we weren't going.

So tonight I'm practising hard for the upcoming gig .....

Alright, I'm sitting watching telly and drinking beer, but it's the thought that counts!

Holiday time is always a pain when you're in a band. The way it should work is that I book my holidays, then the other guys ask me when I've booked for and then book their holidays at the same time, so we miss a minimum number of rehearsals. What actually happens is they all go and book their hols based on other things like what's convenient for them, or what their wives tell them to do! Can you believe it?! Anyway, the upshot is that we've had a number of weeks with no rehearsal this summer, so we're a wee bit rusty.

We did have a rehearsal two weeks ago, and had an interesting visit from a very drunk and possibly slightly mad Polish lady. She appeared at the window and half-shouted, half-signed something to us, so I went out there, because I thought she was complaining about the noise. When I got out there she was on her mobile, so I came back in and we all thought she'd gone away, or had called the police. Anway she appeared again, and T opened the window so she could talk to us and it turned out she liked the music and asked if she could come in and listen. Well, we let her in, and she wafted in, followed by the fumes from a Polish vodka factory (good job none of us smokes) and sat down to listen. But a few bars into the first song she was up and pogo-ing along with the music. Paul described her as dancing like Hugo of the Vicar of Dibley. At one point it looked like she was going to take her jeans off, but we were spared that.

Anyway, she seemed to enjoy it, but we locked the door last night in case she came back!

Last night was good. We have a gig at the George Inn, Thruxton on Sept 18th (all welcome!) so we're rehearsing in anger for that. it all went pretty well. We hadn't played Mama Mia as well as that for ages, and the songs which T sings on are sounding really, really good. Our gash version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door sounds brilliant, with T really going for it, plus she sings Maria really well.

Our next lesson to learn as a band will be how to fit into a space that's not really big enough for us. We have quite a small area to squeeze into on Spet 18th, so that should be fun. Not quite sure how we're going to get the lights in, that's for sure!

If anyone does fancy coming along, feel free to drop me a PM and I'll give you all the gen on the gig.

No rehearsal tonight :-( But Paul and I are going to The George at Thruxton for him to check it out and for me to give them some posters to put up. We now have a professionally produced logo! The one off Charlies kick drum skin was photographed and then our friendly graphic designer has turned it into a very good white-on-black jpeg image. I'm going to get a stencil made of it so we can stencil it onto all our gear (speakers and stuff). T-shirts will be next. PM me to place your order! :-)

We played our first pub gig on Saturday, at The George Inn, Thruxton. Generally it was a big success. We managed to get here quite early, about 5pm, only to find that although some of the furniture had been moved out, not all of it had. There was a bloody great fruit machine in one corner where we were going to stand one of the PA speakers and a big leather sofa where we thought people could stand. We found out the fruit machine was alarmed so it couldn't be moved (but not half as alarmed as we were when we saw the space we had to play in, ha ha!) and there was nowhere else to put the sofa.

Ah, well, such is life. We go set up quite quickly, but it was hard all working in this small alcove. We really needed Ted and Charlie to set up the keyboards and drums before the rest of us could slot in around them. One big problem was making sure the legs of the stands didn't stick out too far for people to trip over. We sound checked in front of a few locals, and they seemed appreciative, so that boded well.

In the evening the place was packed, with quite a lot of our mates, but a fair few locals as well. The layout of the pub was a bit crap for a gig, as it was hard for anyone to find a spot where they could hear us properly but weren't deafened and could still see us. I guess the pub was laid out some time in the 1700s though, so I don't suppose there was anyone left around to blame for that.

We didn't play brilliantly. Charlie messed up the end of Knocking on Heaven's door, ending it just after the lead break, so we all had to follow him. Shame because T sounds amazing in the second half of the song but we didn't actually get that far. We all played some bum notes and wrong chords, but having said that we went down a storm. Two lads from my old band, Clever Jake, turned up and they seemed impressed. I was pleased about that.

Annoyances were the layout and them closing the bar while we were packing up so we couldn't get a drink afterwards. The barman told us the week before that they had a licence until 1 am, so you would have thought they could have poured us a beer, seeing as how they'd just had their busiest Saturday night since they caught a highwayman out on the London high road (now called the A303) all down to us. Still, that's small beer really, ha ha! We had a great night, went down well and we might even get a cut of the extra take that night if we're lucky.

Nice things were that some of our kids got to see the first set, and they really loved it, and it all builds the confidence. It was a little bit nerve-wracking, playing our first such public gig, but we got through it without too many cock-ups.

Another late night though. I crawled into bed about 1:30 am again. I'm getting too old for this, ha ha!

Glad to hear it all went well, always love a good pub gig. Although very few have a good layout, but thats just pubs for you.
Its handy for getting your name out there while hopefully earning a bit of cash for yourselves too

Still not sure if we're going to be paid for this one. Charlie has a habit of negotiating after the event - not smart really!

Wey hey! We got paid for the Thruxton gig! We're never gonna rival the Rolling Stones for earnings, but its nice to be appreciated. As usual there are a million and one bits of kit we need, but this list has been reduced to 999,998 bits of kit as we have oredered a pair of powered stage monitor speakers and a rack compressor to put the vocals through. So that's cleaned us out, and some, and we're back to having invested more into the band than we have been paid, just in case the Inland Revenue read this.

We had a good rehearsal last night. We ran through Love Shack for the first time, and that was going well by the end. It's always hard when you have a rehearsal just doing newbies, as it's all a bit raggedy and you can come away wondering if we're any good after all. By the third or fourth time through it was starting to come together. I quite like singing that song as the male vocal is all a tiny bit insane, which suits me.

We also worked a bit more on my evil plan to insert Alright Now in the middle of Mama Mia, and that was starting to come together. Now at least the guys just think it's a slightly odd idea, rather than completely barking, which they did at first. They may well yet be proved to be right!

Next week we're back down to a trio, so that's always fun. As I've said before, it's nice to know we can still cut it as a trio.

So now we're looking forward to our next gig on November 19th, which is a charity gig at a dinner/dance. We should hopefully be able to slot a few more newbies in by then, and then it'll be time to really polish things up for our party in December. Time to paractice the Xmas numbers, too. it seems almost imoral to be talking about Xmas now, but there you go .....

The new foldback speakers and compressor arrived today, but the thing I'm most excited about is the castors for my big Marshall amp. It's only a 2x12 combo, but it wieghs in at around 27kg and I'm getting too old for it. I have to say, while I admire Marshall, I love their amps and they have been very good on the service side, their accessories can be a bit of a rip-off, if I'm honest. A set of Marshall official castors will set you back around £45! i got mine from Thomann and they're about £18. Anyway, soon I will have them fitted and will be able to ride it downhill. A new event for the 1012 Olympics? The men's downhill 2x12 combo. I'd have to enter the AB class. :-)

Anyway, no rehearsal this week, 'cos people are all away and unavailable, but it gives me a chance to sort some gear out. I'm thinking of going up from .010 gauge strings to .011. Watch this space to see how it goes, or listen for the screams of agony. :-(

Best thing about having an amp on casters is that If you stick a cover over it you can use it as a trolly for the rest of your kit, saves you trips and your back haha.

I'm a fan of 0.11's, Always what I use, granted it is a bit painful to begin with but you soon get used to them

You can't beat the tone, though.

Some string manufacturers do 10.5 gauge, but that seems to be a bit of a cop out to me. Like doing a 3/4 marathon.

Bit of a raggedy-arsed rehearsal last night. We had no Ted so everything sounded a bit thin, but we managed to limp through Love Shack without him, which was good. We're rehearsing in anger for a charity gig on Novermber 19th, but we have no idea how long a set they want us to play, so we can't concentrate on a reduced set list.

For some reason the room we rehearse in at the school has had the heating turned up really high the last couple of weeks, which means it's really hard to sing. I couldn't work out why my voice was giving out really early in the evening. Predictably the response from most of the guys when I said, "I can't sing tonight" was, "What's new?", but T is a trained singer and came straight out with the explanation was that it was because it was so hot. How clever is she?

Anyway, we're all in there sweating buckets, which is not nice. At half time (also know as beer time) I had a sweaty stripe under my guitar strap and I could feel the pockets in my jeans were sweaty. Yeuch!

Roll on winter when it will be nice and cold!

Well, that's another gig under our belt! This one was a charity gig at the Masonic Hall in Andover.

Once again we did a bit of a contentious gig, with me leading us into it this time. Basically, the provenence of this as a charity was a bit suspect. It's really all about sending a perfectly healthy and well-balanced adult on the holiday of a lifetime to the North Pole, which is hardly a charity. They are raising some money for a local charity, which is cool, but mostly its about the North Pole trip, and none of us is that keen to help fund it, really. Hell, I'd like to take the family to Marbella for two weeks in the summer, but I don't think all my friends and family will rally round and organise events to raise the necessary!

Anyway, added to that was the fact that the person going on the trip didn't seem to think it necessary to actually thank us during the speech in which she thanked just about everyone else. She even thanked my lovely wife for "Helping with the band" but didn't think to actually thank the band! So that'll be the last help she gets from us.

Having said that, the gig went pretty well. We were rushed to set up as usual. We got to the hall at 5 pm to find it in darkness and then had to wait over half an hour for anyone else to turn up. I was hoping for time to mess about with our new compressor for the vocals, but we had to fly without it in the end because we didn't have time. It has to be said, the guy who runs the place for the Masons, Barry, was an absolute gem, and really helpful, but it's not helpful to keep telling us how soon the punters will be arriving! We're stressed enough as it is without that!

Anyway, it's always nice to be well appreciated, and despite a few screw-ups, not least me totally losing the plot during Sex On Fire, we were very well received. The disco guys asked for our card because they do a lot of weddings and often get asked if they know a band. they asked for the card after our first set, so they must've liked us. It was great to have a guy playing air guitar right in front of us during Roll With It. Made us feel like real rock stars!

Anyway, the new monitor speakers worked really well, after the additional purchase of a shed load of adaptors, which helped.

As usual though, the post-gig euphoria is spoiled by the post-gig tear-down and I finally got to bed at around 2 in the morning, with a nicely drunken wife still ranting at me about how ungrateful they were!

We're all up for charity gigs, but it is nice to get some genuine thanks.

Still, the next gig is our Xmas party, when we raise money for the local children's hopsice, Naomi House. It'll be nice to be back on home turf, and able to look back over a successful year since we last played our Xmas Party in Thruxton. Roll on the 4th December!

Blimey, it's been so long since I posted a blog entry.

Make a long story short ..... the xmas party gig went down a storm and we have a nice DVD of some of the songs. we got the compression working on the vocals, and that helped no end. Also, I changed the way I fed the sound to the monitors, so that was even better. Teh sound was definitely better than we have ever had before.

The set list was the best ever, too. We played a barnstorming rendition of Love Shack, which went down brilliantly, and a rocking version of All I Want For Xmas, on which T showed Mariah Carey how it should be done (she is UNBELIEVABLE on that song!). I managed to balls up Sex on Fire (again! That's starting to be a bit of mental block for me ...) and the start of the solo for Roll With It, but on the whole we all played and sang well.

So, next up is my step daughter's wedding. She's specifically asked us to do You've Got The Love, which went really well when we first played it a couple of weeks ago. It's a simple song, but the nuances are subtle and it needs to be played with some sensitivity to get it sounding right. needless to say, T totally nails it. We're also working on White Wedding (what else?) and the Time Warp and Greased Lightining to get everyone up and moving. There's a nother gig in the offing the week before that, too, so hopefully we'll get paid and be able to buy a sub-woofer!

We also got offered a gig on the royal wedding bank holiday, but T's away and we've taken a vow that we only play gigs we can all do apart from in really exceptional circumstances. No playing gigs just for the dollar ....

More soon, peeps!

And another long time passes before I get to blogging ... what am I like, eh?

So what have The Rookies been up to?

Well, first of all we ended up playing our first proper outdoor gig a few weeks ago. A mutual friend of several band members was having her Silver Wedding party in a big garden and had set her heart on an outdoor summer barbecue. Well, it was the weeken of July 16th and it chucked it down for most of the weekend!

They had a jazz band on in the afternoon, so I had a nice chat with the guitarist who had a really nice Macafferi copy, like the old Django Rheinhardt models. A very pretty guitar. But these poor old jazzers sat under a big gazebo in the rain being ignored by most ... a fate I was adamant would not befall us! People can boo, scream and throw stuff if they like, but we WILL NOT be ignored!

We had ordered a big new sub-woofer for this gig, with it being ourdoors, but as ever with committee decisions we delayed it too long and it never arrived in time. Nevertheless we were told the sound was the best people ahd ever heard from us. In truth, outdoor sound is easy because there are few unwanted reflections of the sound.

Come early evening the rain stopped and the sun came out (the sun shines on the righteous, so make sure you always invite them to your barbecues!) We got set up under the gazebo, with rubber mats under the gear to stop them getting damp. It was after setting up that we came across an interesting phnomenon that all sound men should be aware of. We were running off a single 13A socket, but that's OK because we do that quite a lot and it never causes any problems. But on this day, as we were standing around waiting to go on, jsut playing backgroudn music through the PA, it all cut out. I turned out the RCD in the main consumer board for the house had tripped. We re-set it, adn it went again. WE then realised that we had 3 RCDs in the line - the one for the house, one at the socket and Ted had one on his keyboards - and apparently they7 can interfere with eath other and trip one another out. So, with our own RCDs duly removed it all worked fine - phew!

Anyway, we barnstormed the gig. Our new version of The Time Warp went down really well, and we even had a request to play Love Shack earlier in the set and then repeated it for an encore.

But afterwards everyone disappeared, the lady of the house locked up and went to bed leaving us in the garden clearing up by nothing but the light of a full moon once we'd turned our own lights off - another 2 in the morning job .. zzzzzz

So, after that it was Jade's wedding (my stepdaughter and therefore Teoni's sister, if you've been following things on here - come on, pay attention!). This was a gig in a big marquee and seeing as how I oversaw the putting up of the marquee and how it was laid out inside, I made sure we had plenty of space to play in.

We had the new sub-woofer by then as well, which was good because sonically there's not much difference between playing in a big marquee and playing outdoors. All the bass just goes out through the walls.

The gig had it's own little problems to solve. The first was that T had a lovely dress to wear and bloody well wasn't going to change out of it for anyone. I wasn't all that keen to play in my suit and the other guys wouldn't be there anyway, so they weren't about to turn up in whistles. In the end we decided that T's dress gave the perfect opportunity to go for that 80s Blondie-type look so T wore her purple dress and the rest of us dressed in black trousers, shits and leather jackets with purple thin ties and mirror aviator shades - instant 1980s!

Then we had to trim the set down somewhat - a mere hour to fill - and then we had the logistics of me having to be at the wedding, then the reception and having not much time to set up. I slept in the marquee overnight as a night watchman, so I took the gear with me, set up some the night before, then the guys came over at 9 am and we set up and soun-checked. Not too keen on having theat long between sound-check and playing, but it was unavoidable.

Of course it also meant I was on a low-alcohol regime until after we'd played and packed up - bum!

But play we did, and it went down well. I didn't think I played all that well if I'm honest, but even my mum was up and dancing so that was a result. Our version of You've Got The Love went down really well, as did my new-found rock God pose of standing with one foot on the foldback! The Time Warp was one of the highlights as everyone was up to that one, and Love Shack went down a storm, too.

The next gig is a open air gig at a fete (a fete worse than death, ha ha!). Ted wasn't keen to do it for jsut a half hour set, and we were going to do it as a four-piece with no keyboards, but I've managed to persuade Ted to turn up with jsut one keyboard and plug straight into the PA for this gig and he's agreed, so that should be bette than it might have been.

Then after that it's our next public gig at The George Inn, Thruxton on September 10th - be there or be square!