Deja Vue?

It is with regret that I have to announce that our rythm guitarist Diddler is leaving the band. It is completely amicable and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his contribution to the band. We have enjoyed playing with him and wish him well in the future. The Diddler has given a lot to the band and will be hard to replace. This obviously leaves us with a huge gap to fill and no one to fill it....the search for a singer and a new rythm guitarist starts now........

End of another chapter

It is with regret that I have to announce that our singer Kieron (pugwash) is leaving the band. It isn’t completely amicable which is a shame but I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his contribution to the band at such short notice in June and for all he has done since. Kieron is a very good singer and his voice will be hard to replace. This is not the place to discuss what has happened but my gut feeling is that it is for the best. This obviously leaves us with a huge gap to fill and no one to fill it....the search for a new singer starts now.....

Malta...I'm lovin it

So I learned a new phrase yesterday….In Maltese? I hear you ask. No I asked a local musician if he knew if Bass players were in short supply in Malta….he said yes very much so as it is part of a Maltese persons nature to be the centre of attention and play lead guitar and do all that “ Fret W&nking” I love the phrase and intend to use it at every convenience…….

Two days left of our holiday……and tonight we are off to the Festa……for those not in the know…a festa is when the village or town celebrates it’s saint.One of the most important days in that particular churches calendar and apart from the religious significance it is part of Maltese culture and demands that they make as much noise as possible by shooting bombs (not fireworks) bombs into the air it also dictates that you open your front doors put on as many lights as possible (whoops there goes another Polar bear spontaneously combusting in the North Pole) You have to dress up and walk around aimlessly in the streets which are decorated with banners and lights….the most blasphemous ruffians of the village turn in to God botherers and decide to carry a statue of the saint around the village and swear their love to the statue. You have to eat as much Nougat and Hot Dogs as possible.(incidentally hotdogs in Malta are served with baked beans!!!!) Throw as many pieces of paper from a shredder around the streets and drink as much alcohol as you can. Then there is the village band……The Maltese band has a unique sound…..high pitched clarinets nice oompah oompah sounds and a bass drum balanced on the chasis of an old pram….priceless……..when living in Malta I kind of avoided the Festa….away from it I take every opportunity to go back just to make sure that they don’t change……On an island ever changing it is nice to see that some things do not.

Tonight is The Festa of San Duminku at Vittoriosa the birthplace of my Nanna….It’s a smaller festa and every so often the other Festa followers from the church of San Lawrenz throw bottles at San Duminku’s band and vice versa but in all fairness as the statue of San Lawrenz passes San Duminku Church in their Festa the statue bearers turn San Lawrenz’s back to the San Duminku’s Church but come Monday morning all will be forgotten and everyone will be friends again bantering about which Festa had the most fire works longest flag poles or better band…..and anyway just around the corner is the Regatta in the Grand Harbour and the people of Vittoriosa unite…..as the arch enemy Cospicua with their Blue and white Dghajjes (boats) are looking strong this year……….ah Malta……you just can’t help but love the place

Hot Machero on Maltese Radio

Ok..ok…the title of today’s offerings is a bit misleading …Hot Machero were heard on Maltese radio…it was my Aunty Jessie’s radio in her kitchen in Malta via my Ipod and the ITrip transmitter…..but still it was a Maltese Radio…

Oh how we are missing you all in good old blighty…the rain …the wind….work…depressing weather reports have been replaced with trips on Uncle Guzi’s boat in a crystal blue sea and past ancient bastians of the Grand Harbour which in my opinion should be listed as one of the wonders of the world. Darn….the weather isn’rt so good today it’s too hot the locals are saying…37 degrees in the shade…..missing family and friends (and our instruments) maybe….England not one bit!

Wifey and Rock star got there musical fix by visiting a local music store . wifey picked and strummed away at a semi acoustic whilst I had to pick the shop assistant’s chin of the floor as Rockstar banged out a few drum routines…that’s my boy! The shop assistant is a good friend of the Maltese band Beangrowers who I must say are very very good

Rock star has been very brave and his fear of deep water was met headlong and managed to swim off of the boat yesterday ….with some gentle encouragement from me kind of throwing him off (teee hee hee) Aunty Jess sent a text to the local radio station Super 1 who put a shout out to Rockstar for being so brave….he was mentioned three times…..so the little bugger has actually upstaged us again as he really did get on Maltese radio his sister got a shout too….As for his Sister the mini minx everywhere she goes the Maltese thinking I can’t understands Maltese keep saying ..in Maltese “ look how sweet that girl is ah bless” that’s my girl!!!!

When Aunty Jess gets together with Wifey the local wine merchants struggle to keep up with supplies. They are best wine drinking buddies…there is an international language and it’s called wine……Pop! There goes another cork and Aunty Jess oohing and ahhing over what she considers the best sound in the world.

Finally we have been trying to get hold of some old Maltese instruments and actually spent an hour with Ruben Zahra the Maltese composera and author of this book we have which is really interesting about old Maltese music. Ruben has traveled all over promoting Maltese music and was actually responsible for the formation of the Maltese Band Etnika. We were after a Zummara which is an old Maltese reed instrument. Ruben is one of the few people to still make them. Through a few texts and e-mails he met us in Marsaskala and gave us over an hour of his time. Ruben is an extremely knowledgeable man and he gave wifey a Flejguta which is sort of like a primitive recorder. He has actually done some music for a top US broadcaster which make the Sopranos. They are replacing the programme with a Mafia sitcom called Giuseppe and sent for Ruben to do some music for the programme. You heard it here first. We promised to exchange e-mails and who knows he may make Wifey a Zummara…we were truelly grasteful to Ruben in spending the time with us within so such short notice….what a great bloke….any way got to go Aunty Jess is cooking us Ravjul……..oh yes there is a glass of wine waiting too

Out of office hours my &rse

Wifey took a step back took a deep breath and unleashed hell on the hapless car hire man at the airport….We had landed an hour late the kids had been great on the plane and all the baggage arrived safely, met the rellies with hugs and kisses all round everything was going fine until we had arrived at this budget car hire at Malta's Luqa airport.
We had paid upfront for the car online but then there were the hidden charges…the out of office hours charge…..I kid you not…we were always going to arrive after 2300 hours but the man said well I'm here til three but after 2200 hours there is an out of office time charge….he wasn't going to let up on the hidden charges either …..well I even tried speaking Maltese but I got the it's not me but my bosses soeach in Mlatese as well as English………We decided …no…just part with the dosh and lets get on with it.
So we went to bed after gorging on as many Pastizzi as humanely possible and settled down to sleep courtesy of Auntie Jessie's air conned room…..I'd forgotten how hot Malta was ……even hotter than Wayne Rooney's match day socks but as holey as The Dark Marge's. anyway today was spent on the beach….we went to Ghadira for those in the know and then went back home for some Pasta in the oven…anyway gotta go the wine is flowing .
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Bagpuss Ransom

The night before rehearsals are usually mad panics to get the last finishing touches to the song or songs the band will rehearse the next day. This week was no exception “Last Train to Clarksville” is coming along famously “Mr Rock “N” Roll” is almost there the other songs are just about sorted. Now you see The Dark Marge is an artist (no not a piss artist....well not all the time) He designed the Hot Machero logo and if you surf on into his myspace he has a load of his 3D art displayed. So when he agreed about a year ago to do me an Orc playing a bass I was kind overjoyed.............but in his truly devilish mischievous way The Marge of the darkest kind has got me by the short and curlies.......
He asked me to tab out Romeo and Juliet and Bag puss for the Mandolin and now he has held my completed Orc to Ransom for these tabs. so you can picture the scene at our house tonight ...packing to go to Malta on Saturday getting the kids off to bed cleaning and washing ..rehearsing for tomorrow’s band practice and you guessed it tabbing out the music for flaming Bag puss (well not really flaming as Bag puss was kind of cool in a droopy kind of way)... To my amazement I did it from scratch (played it on my bass, .translated it on my Mando wrote it on the computer and sent it all in ten minutes....okay it’s hardly Tchaikovsky’s umpteenth symphony in mini minor........but it was a victory for......... I thought I’d quite like to share the moment...................I wonder if the band would object to me playing the Rainbow theme tune as a bass solo in our set.?...............ho hum.......Time for bed said Zebedy

Let's not twist again

Ashley my new bass combo is a thumper!!! No more will I be lost in a wilderness of twang twang teeeeeeeoooooowww as my four strings compete with the combined total of twelve belonging to Wifely and Diddler. Even Barabanshik our drummer extraordinaire can hear me now!!!!! Wicked!!!!!
Just when I thought my musical life couldn’t get better…………the band decide we are to bin “Lets twist again” and “Let’s dance” hurrah! (Kind of annoying after let’s dance wasn’t easy to work out at first..but hey!) These songs have been replaced by some cool songs “Mr Rock n’ Roll “ by Amy Macdonald and “Vertigo” by U2 with “Last Train to Clarksville” by the Monkees adding to the to do list just to give a little cheese to our repetoire…..”Dakota” by Stereophonics went well last rehearsal except I stood in on vocals for an absent Pugwash the RSPCA knocked on the hall doors to see who was slaughtering cats on the premises but hey it served a purpose. “I can’t Explain “ by the Who went really well the rehearsal before that so slowly but surely we are increasing the amount of songs at our disposal…

Jockanese K …..MBE and his wife,Mrs Jockanese K…..MBE and their daughter,little Miss Jockanese K……MBE came round to us on Friday night. He had in his mitts the DVD of our very first gig at the Boot …my word we have come a long way in our sound since then…thanks to all of you who were there that day……….but you fibbing bunch of wot nots!!!!! We weren’t very good at all!
It was great to see the Jockanese K……MBEs but it was tinged with a little sadness to the fact that Jockanese K..MBE has been posted back to Iraq. He is an RAF man and he is off to Basra …obviously he hasn’t told me too much of what he is doing (he’d have to shoot me!) but it sounds a mighty dangerous place and I’m sure that the rest of us in our cosy little lives aren’t being given the full picture by the establishment into what is happening over there. So later this month he is off…..all kitted out in his camoflage gear…(cue Rambo music) going to the middle east and joining in the war against terrorism….….Jockanese K…MBE …we salute you!…….he has promised to keep in touch and read my endless entries of drivel and has said he will write some bits for this blog for your entertainment (heavily censored by NTKB…….Need To Know Basis) I mean I don’t know what he can tell me that would be classed as non sensitive by the MOD (that’s Ministry Of Defence by the way not Paul Weller etc…)……I mean what can he say …..”Weather nice, food good , locals friendly wish you were here!”……hardly. “Today I saw some sand” maybe? Jockanese K ….MBE I’m sure will come up with something interesting for us. I’m sure I speak for all of you that read this blog (those who know him and those that don’t and whatever your views over Iraq) Take care K and hurry home for New Year’s Eve you have family and friends back home thinking of you……….

Mini Minx our little girl was 3 on Saturday…..we went to The Zoo for the day. We piled Mother dearest and Mokey (Mini Minx’s God mother ) into the car and we all went down to Marwell meeting the Dark Marge down there. Weather was great the day was really good apart from a few minor hitches Mother dearest nearly getting thrown in with the Gibbons having thought to have been an escapee, and then she nearly got into a scrap with a woman as they stood in the queue for ice creams as Mother Dearest tried to barge in on her turn….oh yes…… and there was the moment when she looked quizzically into the glass on the Tigers enclosure and wondered why they needed a rubbish bin in there………it was in fact a reflection of the one she was virtually standing next to……cringe making but very amusing! We let her off anyway as she had copious amounts of home made sausage rolls with her….and as we all sat their feeding in a circle on a nice grassy embankment I almost expected hordes of people standing around taking photos, ooing and ahhing as we fed………. …but then everyone knows there are no Chimps at Marwell.

Mini minx enjoyed herself and she was totally spoilt for presents by everyone which leads me onto my next rant……why oh why are children’s toys packed with thousands of twisty wires which are stuck to the cardboard upon which they are mounted with cellophane and then screwed into a base with screws that chew up as soon as you try and undo them? Peppa Pig’s Camper van complete with camping equipment and pig family was a nightmare to open…what were the manufacturers thinking….Daddy Pig was going to start the thing up and ram through the box to lead his family on a camping holiday of a life time or something?
Holidays ….we are going to Malta next weekend….where my Dad was from…where I lived during my formative years to young adult….I’m going home I suppose.
We are staying at my Auntie’s which will be cool as she is as zany and whacky as we are …..and staying on the musical theme her daughter….Mett…my cousin plays the sitar, her husband (known as Scary Jez by our kids….he isn’t but that’s what they call him ) plays guitar and has started playing the Israj which is another Indian instrument. This should be most interesting to hear! Our six year old Rockstar is excited as he gets to drive my uncle’s boat and I hope that this time next week we will indeed be in some sun bleached bay sipping the local wines on their boat. It can’t come quick enough.