Mother Dearest's Magical Mystery Tour!

So whilst beating about the kitchen on a busy Saturday morning ....I mean which imbecile suggested weekends were for relaxing?!?!?!?!?!?!Mother Dearest gets on the blower and asks if I'd like to take her to this shop in Binfield to buy silver icing colouring.....so I weighed up the fact I had ...washing ironing , lawn mowing dinners to cook .....music to practice and generally a house to tidy and said yes.....
So prising the kids away from each other ......I think at the time Rockstar was pile driving mini minx into the ground following her giving him a double suplex to the chorus of Eazzzeeee Eazzzeeee! but anyway I managed to get them in the car and we arrived at MD's sheltered accomodation to start the magical mystery tour.

Now alarm bells should of started to ring really when she told me she heard about this shop from a man in the pub......(well a woman down the market actually but it's only a subtle difference....) So I ask .....well where is the shop? Amen Corner she replied with all certainty.....shop name? road name ? .......no! So I fired up the in dash crsytal ball and set off on my marathon trip around Binfield. We hunted high ......we hunted low ....but alas couldn't find the shop with no name in a road of similar anonymity. I now know Binfield like the back of my hand....although the back of my hand is by far more interesting. After a few hours we returned home itemless,witless and clueless......

So Rockstar and mini minx resumed their rumble in the jungle and I resumed my mmenial task of keeping the house running.

Weight update ....from 19st 4 on Easter Monday,I actually weighed 18st 1 yesterday morning......

music update.......can tell the gigs are hurtling ever closer ...I made some silly silly errors in rehearsal the other night....(no not just by turning up!!!)
Kultural Karma has taken another twist...out goes the Mando ...the incredible Gurning Gizmo said I looked like Tiny Tim with it in my hand. In comes the jazzed up bass line....again. Working on harmonies this week.......more rehearsals at the weekend maybe a midweek next week and then the gig......Wifey took delivery of very cool stage clothes last night and my effects on my bass have all suddenly decided to sound like Daleks so it's back to the drawing board........not done nearly enough bass study for my lesson that is looming tonight .......and I'm busier than a big busy thing at work

just another day in the life of me

The return of Ultravox

When I was handed a little envelope at Christmas with the confirmation we were going to see Ultravox in Brighton, the 23rd of April seemed a long way away. It arrived and taking the day off Wifey and I descended upon Brighton just after lunch and beat about the place for about six hours visiting many different shops (a huge guitar shop ...which was heaven but that is another story)

Just for the record we didn't indulge in Alcohol, fast food or anything elae unhealthy , having started the day with a run in Bracknell we took our own food eat and drank healthy........the Indian eat as much as you like for next to nothing shop was tempting ......but no.....we were strong.

Anyway we arrived at the Brighton Dome ...and what a venue that is by the way! loads and loads of people (Ultravox has sold out everywhere they have gone on this tour and tickets are like rocking horse shit.) but no queues at the bar! loads of staff and prices were like normal ....I really recommend the old place .....


So after enduring the support act...she was allright just very solo and very acoustic.....We waited for Ultravox ...a wait that this line up has made us wait since Live aid!!!!1985!!!!Now if you were expecting a funny blog today...I'm sorry you ain't getting one. You see since my childhood I've grown up with Midge and the boys. Vienna and Rage in Eden albums were constantly being played by the Dark Marge who was well into them at the time and then when I was older my own pocket money stretched to Quartet, Lament and Uvox and other unusual mixes and live albums. The fact they split up 23 years ago and looked like they were never going to reform and then suddenly they announce the Return to Eden tour on the 30th anniversary of Vienna well then I'm entitled to just note my immediate thoughts on my blog the morning after me thinks

As the lights dimmed and the lazers started the rhythmic like tapping of Astrodyne started to reverberate around the old theatre. They walked on in silence siloueted in the mist and lazers then they all stood at their synths and soon the place was full of the whining synths so synonamous to Ultravox. the first part of the gig was mainly Vienna and Rage in Eden tracks like Passing Strangers, Mr X ,We stand alone , I remember ,Rage in Eden and the place erupted when your name has slipped my mind again merged into Vienna and then the more well known Ultravox songs were blasted out by the bunch of old timers that rocked the 80s and really could show a few new bands how to do it!!!! Thin Wall, Hymn, One small Day,Lament,we stood still, Dancing with Tears in my eyes they were all there. Just as it was time for their community bus to take them back to their nursing homes....(after 90 minutes of music) they came back on for Sleepwalk and The Voice as encores. A more portly Warren Cann looked tired his jet black dyed hair flopping about as he joined the rest of the band at the front of the stage were Chris Cross , Billie Curry and Midge had just chucked their drumsticks into the crowd having ended The Voice with them in unison on drums. Currie had several times come to the front of the stage with his fiddle and re created those haunting sounds of the eighties ....his hair now snow white. Chris Cross and Midge Ure took the bow with the two forementioned and the audience ...who I must say were a very old audience gave them the standing ovation they deserved.What a gig!!!!

A real night to remember...a day to remember...the day I fulfilled another childhood ambition.

I want to do a decent E

I looked down at my plate.......I looked at Rockstar's (my 7 year old )he had more beans than me!!!! I'd woken up and Wifey decided she was doing breakfast and that she and I were going to follow this diet........I now think Rosemary Conley is a bitch!......

It all started when the Wii Fit told me I was a fat bastard! Now it is true that in 10 years since winning the World championship (yes..... 10 years come November) have put on three stone and a lot of body fat.....the old six pack has long turned into a keg and where I once had lazer light speed legs ...the old pins are ...well.....bedside table light speed now.

So yes I was 19 stone 4 and have been eating sensibly since Easter Monday and getting tons more exercise and to my amazement last night Wii Fit told me I had lost 8lbs.I am however quite hungry and apparently the first two weeks on this diet are hell!!!! but then I can eat a bit more about 2,400 calories i think but at the moment I'm living for mealtimes except yesterday's lunch was appalling and resembled something ripped out of the flower beds ....so much so I'm knocking myself up a hutch with a nice sliding door as I'm sure I will resemble a rabbit soon.

In all seriousness i needed to do something the old weight has crept up and surprisingly in the last week I have felt less tired and better for losing the few pounds...........still think Roemary Conley is a sadistic evil moo!!!!

Music ......AAAAAA EEEEEEE DDDDDD AAAAAA.....that is how Kultural Karma should be played on the Mandolin.......My version?......AAAAAAAA.............fek! E...E..sort of E ..EEEE....DDDDDDD AAAAAAAA! Yes I'm struggiling doing Es.....thought I'd try and play the Mando to fill out the song ....I have set myself til Monday 27th (next rehearsal) to do it. Rehearsals went well on Saturday...Double G (gurning gizmo kid) has had a cold so I sang The Park doing my best double G immitation.The Park is actually coming along quite nicely and generally the songs are improving. Only 19 days to the first gig and probably only two rehearsals .....

So as I take this day as impromptu leave from work (didn't realise the kids had an inset day straight after Easter holidays!!! )I ponder on what lies ahead of me in this week....and Thursday is indeed going to be a great day. At Christmas wifey bought us tickets to see Ultravox live in Brighton. Now Dark Marge saw them in their hey day in Portsmouth on the Rage in Eden tour back in 1981....(well he is old) So I'm going to see the Return to Eden tour ....I am well up for this as I would say Ultravox over the years since I was about 10 have been my favourite band. Never thought Midge Ure, Warren Cann, Billy Currie and Christopher Cross would re unite.

Anyway better go and do some chores...oh yes and tuck into a handfull of leaves.....

Gig Flyer Release

Here is the official flyer for the Plough and Harrow gig.
As always sensationally produced by the Dark Marge

Gig Dates

So here it is the Gig dates and timings where available


Saturday 09/05/2009 1500 Weekend MacMillan Cancer Charity Fund Raiser

Plough and Harrow Public House
Forest Road
Warfield
Berks
RG32 6AE


Saturday 23/05/2009 2100

Plough and Harrow Public House
Forest Road
Warfield
Berks
RG32 6AE


Sunday 14/06/2009 In a marquee somewhere in Buckinghamshire

A charity supporting a children's cancer charity are doing a bike ride ending in a bar-b-q and ....well us




Saturday 04/07/2009 1300-1600 St Joseph's school Fete Bracknell


please come and support us at as many of these events as you can
regards
Spriggan Mist

Persnoremance management

The speaker was dull. Her monotone voice drifted over the facts of effective performance management like an early morning fog on a lake except far less interesting.The room was warm the seats a bit tooo comfy, Wifey sat watching other members of the training session that her work thrusts at them thinking it beneficial rather than letting them do the job. Her last vision was a colleague sifting through the far more exciting "Tea pot collectors" weekly magazine which was incognito inside a file which looked far more work related.............. her eyes were getting heavier.....heavier.......heavier............heavy..........hea .....next she heard a loud snore.....which woke her up and made everyone look her way.Wiping the dribble from her mouth and lap she apologised.

She then took to writing some lyrics, Kultural Karma , Days of winter and Spirals have all been written in this manner at boring courses or training days.

Tomorrow Spriggan Mist's "Summer tour" dates are released.....I say tour as our three gig summer has turned in to 5 gigs over a 9 week period. Then we have a break before The Mad M's party in Lincolnshire in September. But as our intrepid Percussionist Tomato Slayer said ......"I'm convinced you'll find out more playing to two bored teenagers and a dog for ten minutes than any number of evenings in the the back garden." ......we've got the dog now where are the bored teenagers?

Just an update from The Dark Marge...or Mythago Wormwood or whatever he calls himself.....He has emersed himself into Second life in a big way and he was last seen floating in a self built Zeppelin accross a virtual world .....I seriously worry about that boy ....I knew all those years locked in his bedroom staring at pictures of Clare Grogan weren't healthy

Band Dynamics

It is only after a while that you kind of get to know people really isn't it. The band is starting to function as a band quite well...ideas are bouncing as high as a Northern Rock cheque and the music is certainly getting better and better .....and on the way we are having fun.

Last night's rehearsal was a good one with the problematic songs tackled hard on like Vinnie Jones on steroids. Earth Calling...in my opinion one of Wifey's finest instrumentals with so much going on was giving us trouble. Gurning boy went home last week re jigged it about....maybe layed it out in a way it made sense to him and The Phantom Pinger...funked up my bass line added a false stop threw in a mad all over the place bombastic bit (later discarded by Simon Cowell aka Wifey) and gave the song an overdose of speed at the end to make it a lot faster. It sounded great!!!and I get to put a wah effect on my bass....blinding!

Now due to the fact earlier this week I had a cold......and I'd been singing "The Park " like Aled Jones to hit the high backing my voice went last night and Kultural Karma vocally was by far not my finest hour...but it was during Kultural Karma I looked down at the The Phantom Pinger. You see Pings is a bit of a gadget girl. In front of her is only what I can describe as the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
Out of the corner of my eye there is some weird and wonderful pad pushing keyboard plunking and knob twisting going on the result of which out of the monitors ...little atmospherics and keyboard sounds can be heard. At the front of the arrangement is a laptop which has her score tastefully hidden from the audience which scrolls down as she plays ...it's marvelous.

Earlier this week Gurning boy who I must say is not short of being a bit of a gizmo boy himself emails me a suggestion.......(they must come to him like Eureka moments.....) The new song we are learning of his "The Park" involves a lot of backing vocals (you know Aled Jones style ...I've mentioned this already...keep up) Knowing that I am a lyrical talent (head swelling by the moment )....well you are reading my blog so there must be something in the way I write!!!! anyway where was I?....oh yes self appreciation bit.....yes he asked me to write a prose for the beginnning of the song so he could put a little atmospheric bit in the background and then come in with the first chords as I finish linking the previous song in a seamless transition.....blimey.He described it as like Peter Gabriel did on some DVD he saw. So practicing the fine art of minimising and maximising my word document at work as my boss hovered I wrote a few lines and last night we tried it.....Ping the Gadget girl twisted some knobs and off I started ignoring Tomato slayer and Wifey looking like two howling witches round a cauldron as my lyrics embraced the atmospheric back drop....(blimey that did sound arty farty......I'm going to type that again )

my lyrics embraced the atmospheric back drop....

Anyway wifey reckons I should really get into the Peter Gabriel theme and come out dressed as a sunflower.....I told her to "go forth and multiply"...taking her sunflower and Dark Marge's faery outfit with her!!!!!!But then at least I've not spent a week's holiday on a naturist beach like some percussionists I know ....a very long winded explanation was given to me on how he ended up there and it did sound plausable. The Tomato slayer offered me some valuable parenting advice last night too on how to deal with 15 year old daughters..(Minx is 4 going on 15 so won't be long)
Anyway ...at the point where they walk about 10 feet behind you in public as they are embarassed of going out with dear old Dad.... (see last blog) The Tomato Slayer used to grab their hand smile theatrically at them and drag them along whilst skipping as high as possible like Laura out of little house on the Prairie...apparently it works a treat...I will bank that and use it in 10 years time. I think Slayer's Wife and my Wifey are related.....hmmm well he told us that some people are scared of his Mrs......the rest have never met her!!!!

This blog has really been about the band today....between work and band wifey and I have managed to get layed......a stone circle in the middle of the garden together with stepping stones from the patio to the music room. I've also managed to connect up Mother Dearest's DVD/ Video for her...the eyesight isn't that good these days bless her ....she tried putting a slice of bread in the old video thinking it a toaster so I connected it up for her ....the other day she was going round the underpass on her ferrari (on two wheels...ala James Bond) and she saw what she described as a monster with big arms out stretched coming towards her ....which turned out to be a lad on a bike with a roll of bubble wrap on his back.

So what of the Dark Marge.....dunno I'll let you know when he comes back out of "Second life " on the internet....

toodle loo

Nostalgia and The Impromptu Gig

It is a great moment when you realise you can embarass your children......

We've all been on the recieving end as children ourselves haven't we? I'm sure The Dark Marge, as he reads this will recall that when we were kids just as the punk era was giving way to a Mod revival Father Dearest on a Sunday evening just before dusk would insist we both join him on a cruise down Southsea sea front (we only lived up the road). So rather reluctantly we'd pile into the Vauxhall Victor and he'd bung on some crap on the cassette car stereo like Jim Reeves or the Platters wind down the windows (by hand of course .....there were no automatic ones then at least not on our budget) and he'd start from Eastney Swimming baths down to Clarence pier hand hanging outside his window singing out loud to the strains of "only you " as we passed trendy looking mods in their trilbies and suits as they sat chatting on their lambrettas and vespas ......I remember mastering the art of sinking into my seat so no one from school would see me...The Marge was even better at it than me and for him at a rough age of 15 it must have been even worse...almost social suicide....looking back Father Dearest must of been in seventh heaven...A Maltese lad, in England out with his boys warm summer evening, music he loved in a City he loved.....he was doing a job he loved too at the time and it was probably his way of unwinding.......unfortunately it wound us up a treat.

Mother Dearest? she was saved from the ordeal by doing the weeks ironing of a Sunday night....Sometimes the top 40 would be on in the background.....in fact one of my earliest memories is on a Sunday night in my pyjamas in the kitchen of our Naval married quarters surrounded by piles of ironing with a toy guitar (purchased from the Southsea show if I remember rightly) pretending I was a rock star strumming to David Bowie's Space Oddity ...the line "ooooh i'm floating in a tin can " being as much as I knew of the lyrics ...I was only about 4!!!!!

Anyway I digress.....So there we were some 34 years after Space Oddity was released sitting outside the violin and piano teacher's house in Bracknell. Mini Minx was inside torturing her violin (actually that is harsh as she too is only 4 and is doing very very well) My 7 year old Rockstar is sat in the car with me I had the window open and I flip through my Ipod (how times have changed)I find "One Way " by the Levellers and play it. Now on Saturday from a mind body and spirit fair in Brentwood I purchased a vietnamese mouth harp...kind of like a jews harp but made of a bullet case....it makes a boing diddy boing sound and I have been driving everyone mad with it but I had 10 minutes to spare so I jammed along to the levellers ....to my surprise I noticed out of the corner of my eye about four school children stood bt the car window really digging this vibe...they were under 10 years of age. I was rockin making as much rhythmic noise as possible and really getting in to it.....I looked at rockstar and he was sinking in his chair he was changing colours and had a look of ...."let me dissappear in a puff of smoke" in his eyes.....I got a clap from the children ......I decided to put it away.....afterall doesn't look good does it? strange bloke in a strange car gathering a crowd of children around him......times have unfortunately changed.......



I closed my eyes and for a moment ....I heard Jim Reeves' "welcome to my world" like an echoe from the past and for a moment ....just a moment .... I was on Southsea sea front again.....in our Vauxhall Victor