Spring Appearances and Announcements

I’m going to join Little Barrie for a couple of his Northern shows next week. Barrie often turns up in my ramblings on here, as a good friend and a drinking partner whose capacity to body-weight ratio is unparalleled. First and foremost though Barrie is a peerless guitarist steeped in the history of his instrument and the roots of the music we all love, so it’ll be an honour to join him and his long serving bassist Lewis Wharton next week. That would be enough in itself but then they’ve decided to bring in a British legend in Malcolm Catto on drums. I’ve long been a fan of his playing, particularly in his own band the Heliocentrics. It’s hard to stress how good Malcolm is, there’s scant footage of him online but if you see little ten second clips of him like this one you know the quality you’re dealing with. Within two of those ten seconds.

Or check this one out, he looks like he’s leaning on the wall through tiredness but his groove is beyond containment:

Anyway Little Barrie is brilliant, Malcolm Catto is brilliant and this week, as a treat for fans from the economic wastelands, they’ll be joined by plucky Northerner Christian Madden. I’m a weak link but an enthusiastic one, and as I said last week, great players lift you beyond your own humble abilities. I’m going to join them at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Thursday the 3rd and then at Band On the Wall on Friday the 5th. There are tickets left so get on it, spring is here and it’s time to start throwing your money about again. Also, I’ll only be doing a few so I’ll have a pint with you and we can watch the set.

You should pre-order their new album Electric War here or somewhere else that you prefer. Have a listen to their last one together too:

Darrell Smith at the Grand

As if leaving the house twice in a week isn’t enough on Saturday the 5th of April I’ll be popping round the corner to play with Darrell Smith at the Grand. I mentioned I was doing this the other week but it sold out very quickly, I think Darrell might be popular. They’ve freed up more tickets by removing some of the hanful of tables and chairs they’d had in so there’ll be a few more available if you’re interested.

He texted me last Sunday to check if I was still alright to rehearse the day after, I’d obviously completely forgotten but being a man of few appointments I was still available. I frantically started looking through the list of 28 tunes he’d asked me to learn in advance and realised that it wouldn’t be happening and that I’d be attending this first rehearsal with no trousers on. Metaphorically. The good news is that after that panic subsided and I relaxed into knowing I’d simply do a bad job of the first rehearsal, I had mental space to really enjoy some of the tunes. This one by Ray Bryant is dark, heavy funk of the sort that I should’ve never been without:

Then there’s this one by Eddie Floyd. I hadn’t heard this before a couple of weeks ago when Dave Rofe, Doves manager and dressing room DJ of impeccable tastes, played it as part of the ramp up to one of our gigs. It’s a co-write with Booker T too, so shame on me for not being already familiar with it:

It’s a strong set, there’s a couple of better known soul tunes in there to keep the casual music fan on board but there’s a healthy amount of Northern Soul bangers in there too. It’s a strong band and Darrell is an even better singer than I thought. Also his girlfriend is doing a few, I’ve met her before as one of the many people who’ve been dragged up to sing River Deep Mountain High with Joe Madden’s world famous Uptown Band. I see you raising your eyebrow at that but trust me, she was one of the few good ones. If you’re in the Lancashire area try and grab a ticket and if you fancy throwing some money at a local musician buy Darrell's recording of the Drifter here

The Return of The Enemy Chorus

My next album just came back from the pressing plant and it looks great, I would honestly throw money at something that looked like this without the faintest inkling of the sounds contained within. It’s a good while since we recorded it, as always it took us ages to wrap up but there’s nothing time sensitive on there, for instance like a pro Kamala Harris campaign rap. It’s organ instrumentals and therefore business as usual. it was played with some of my best friends and recorded largely in God’s own holiday destination Clitheroe. I’ll mention it more, I have to. Otherwise I’ve just spent a load of money on plastic and paper. I’ll have more details soon but I can say that it’ll be out on the 2nd of May. Why you ask? Because the second of May is a Bandcamp Friday which will please us both transactionally. And also because it’ll be nearly Richard Young’s birthday.

Are You Ready for Monday?

I know, I know. I’m asking you to put your hand in your pocket over and over again. Come to this gig, come to that gig, buy this album, pre-order that one…

I’m not meant to talk about this, as it only officially gets announced on Monday and that’s when tickets will be available. You know what I’m talking about and I know you’ll get bored of me talking about it. You’ve got to come though, it’s where our year is pointing. I want to look out and see your face. It makes sense. Tickets go on sale on Monday and I swear they’ll go faster than we all think, Kenny is popular these days because he stuck at it, tirelessly winning people over up and down the country. Plus there’s eleven Earlies with parents, siblings, offspring, colleagues and acquaintances. We don’t get out much. It’s going to be a little holiday for us.

It’ll be almost exactly like when Kermit and the guys turned up down there in The Great Muppet Caper:

In fact, as well as being completely clueless and awestruck tourists, the other similarity is that we’ll doubtless be staying in a shithole just like the Happiness Hotel. So I think we should give that song a full airing:

Damn, that was good, what a song!

But of course, Madden went and got sidetracked again.

Sorry about that.

But you’ll keep your eyes open on Monday won’t you?