Hobz Malti

I sat in the car ...I had no kids with me Rockstar was dropped off early Mini Minx already with mother dearest but here I was outside the school on my own in the car awaiting ..we'd made contact via e-mail and the drop off was going to be made here and now. Other parents were busy trying to get their children to school ....I was busy looking for my fellow Maltese' s car. You see only Maltese or persons associated with the islands will understand what this little package I was about to receive meant. I felt awkward parents were walking past....why was he sitting there ? where are his children? These questions paled into significance...i saw the black car on the horizon ....soon i would be holding it. Although it was a brisk February morning the sun reflected off the highly polished car as it approached slowing in readiness for the the meet to take place, I felt a bead of sweat dripping off my forehead ....I stepped out of my car and the black estate car slowed down ...The driver's window slid down revealing my Maltese compatriot Agent S at the car's wheel......."It's in the back" she said as i swerved around the car which was now firmly blocking the road like a century stopping any car driving in or out and trying to stop this most important of moments. I dived into the boot and there it was.......the white plastic bag containing my booty....I closed the boot and thanked Agent S ...she sped off to deliver the kids to school and I sped off in the opposite direction at the traffic lights I opened the bag and smelt the familiar smell I yearned for. I reached home realising I had no time to spare ......I opened it up on the kitchen side got the sharpest bladed knife I could and started to cut it.........It was frozen ..........by the evening it would be thawed and ready to devour...but I had to have my fix now!!!! Hobz Malti (or Maltese bread) is a crusty round type of bread found only in Malta (kind of a coincidence really as it is called Maltese bread!!!!!)

I hadn't tasted it since last summer ....I was going to make an egg sarny..so I stuck the two slices in the toaster (for defrosting reasons) ..I find it's easier on the teeth.....and within 12 minutes of receiving the two loaves there sitting in front of me was an egg sarny made with hobz Malti. I closed my eyes...The sun was coming into the kitchen I took a bite and I could of been back in my Zija Jess's (aunty) kitchen in Malta....it was truelly a marvelous moment......sorry but you just might not understand if you haven't had it. Needless to say hobz biz-zejt (bread with tomato puree and oil ) was made in abundance after rehearsals that night.

Kultural Karma is taking shape now Spaceboy has added his planky spanky bit and his vocals and with a bit of practice me finks kultural Karma will be a popular song amongst our fans .....in fact I think both of them will like it!

Talking of anoraks......yes I was......you just weren't paying attention........our intrepid front man Spaceboy is off on pilgrimage this weekend........where to? I hear you all ask......Liverpool.....yes that place up in the North West that all famous scousers harp on about yet strangely enough don't live there anymore....wonder why? Anyway he is going on a Beatles pilgrimage with his other band ...aptly named ...The Beetles....he's keeping quite quiet about the itinery but I'd imagine it will involve upsetting some poor scouse residents who cursed the day they bought the house that a Beatle was either born ,lived or farted in as Spaceboy and the other Beetles plant their noses on the windows of their front rooms. As if learning that our drummer Barabanshik was into role play and dressing up with Mrs Barabanshik wasn't enough.....Spaceboy will be dressing up in Beatles outfits with other blokes and acting out his Beatles fantasies............hmmm .....now wifey and I are no strangers to brightly coloured satin flared trousers ....but they were coupled with nice leather boxing gloves and kick pads and were worn in the name of combat in the fine art of kickboxing.......but dressing up as Sgt Pepper's lonely heart club band and sniffing Macca's underpants is just not normal......!

Me and my F**king Piano

I had that Friday night feeling . Driving home in my car sun setting on another week at work . The Who was blaring on my Ipod .....life couldn't be better. Looking forward to an evening of relaxation and a cider or two. I arrived home to the news from Wifey that the staff at the Outlaws sheltered accomodation had thrown out their Hemmingway piano because it was out of tune and no one had touched it for four years. So off we trotted to the Outlaws who live about a mile away and sure enough today they had placed their piano out in the open by the bin room. Try as hard as we could it just wouldn't fit in the rear of my car.......so we took the decision to wheel it across a road down a slope under an underpass through another underpass up a slope along a busy road and a descent into Machero towers...simple...after all it was on wheels. So off we trotted leaving mini minx with the outlaws rockstar supervised his Mum and Dad making a spectacle of themselves again......I mean imagine you were driving along on a Friday night and you see a couple with their young son out walking ...the piano......It was actually going really well Rockstar even played a few notes in the underpass as a few people went by........some looked amused at the sight others ignored it like it was normal to be out on a freezing cold February night pushing a piano .
All was going really well until we ran over a man hole...........one of the casters fell off bringing proceedings to a halt there we were stuck in a middle of a roundabout with an out of tune piano. We eventually got it up the slope and back onto the main road and a young bloke helped us push it another 100 metres and then the other caster packed in . The passer by at that point did that...pass on by Wifey and Rockstar went off to find some old trolleys from our shed to put under the piano to wheel it up and down some more slopes. So thee I stood on a busy A road with a piano......two cars nearly collided another passer by came up to me and said......"Is that a piano?" ....I replied "No it's a flippin horse" I explained what I was doing ...man left wishing me well.
We eventually got the piano home after several incidents of the piano nearly tipping an hour and a half had passed we were all knackered ...lets just hope it can be tuned and repaired.

Heard from the Weymouth clan Little Miz Chavster said that the last blog was boring (the one about Mr Benn) and that she wasn't a Brussel sprout.........Any way Brussel sprout is coming up next week with the rest of the clan I'm sure I will have loads to blog about that day!!!!!!!

Finally I would like to leave you with this thought. This is something that has been bugging me for a long time......Next time you pop into a petrol station for say a bottle of mllk and don’t buy petrol ....say to the cashier as you go to pay “Just that” and point to your purchases ...without fail...they will say “No Petrol?”......It drives me insane!!!!!! “ Well actually yes I have filled my car up but want to dick you about and tell you that I hadn’t” Why else would I say...”just them....” then if you pay cash they will give you your change on top of a note and the receipt. That again really annoys me as you have your wallet in one hand and have to juggle putting everything into it with one hand...It’s a real pet hate of mine...oh and that’s Wifey’s pet hate...the word...pet hate

Mr Benn "A True English Gentleman"

Following on from confessions of a drummer ....with all these outfits that Mrs Barabanshik is being given I imagine that Barabanshik Towers is a bit like the shop in the TV classic cartoon Mr Benn . Do you all remember?......you know... the bloke that used to go to the strange costume shop and the little man used to appear from no where and Mr Benn used to go through a fitting room door and end up in some far flung adventure then just as it was getting interesting " As if by magic" the man from the shop appeared and brought him back to 1970s England .....and then on his journey home the children in his road would be acting out by sheer fluke the adventure he had just had??!?!?! (this day and age they would be on a street corners hoodies up smokin ' the weed innit....that's if Mr Benn ...who always looked dapper in bowler and pinstripes wasn't robbed at knife point for his i-pod!!!!!)
Bara banshik was lost when I told him about this extraordinary Englishman. ...Mr Benn had ...fought in the desert ...had underwater adventures even went into space on one episode but alas didn't make it to Armenia or Russia......so no Mr Benski!!!!

Kultural Karma is coming along nicely and Wifey can get her own back on me now as it includes a bass solo by yours trully....so she can take the Pee when I cock it up!!!!! In fact I've just settled on the solo, which will make my fingers move like Itsy and bitsy on speed....Now there is another 1970s kids telly programme Itsy and bitsy they were basically hand puppets made to look like spiders (a red one and a yellow one I recall)...

In fact I have been really impressed by Wifey's writing recently (she's been allowed to use pen now....and joined up words!) No seriously we debuted The Wrong Tune at the last gig which unfortunately was ruined by her mic not being turned up enough .....It has been brought to life by Bara mr benn in drag shik's almost tribal drumming and crashes on the China symbol. I like to think my growling bass line sets the scene space boy adds some cool chords on it but Wifey wrote the song and when her mic is functioning properly we've been told it sounds like Kate Bush meets Black Sabbath...kind of.

Bara dressing up in lycra shik stated that Kultural Karma sounds Zepplin like.....I can hear that actually....But the next one she wrote ....Look out has been given the drum treatment and is sounding Heavy rock like.........we were all smiling like Heather Mills/McCartney's bank manager as we thrashed away.....Wifey's lyrics for this are growing I'm not sure about them though. I'm worried that Space boy might find the song scary....! He thinks Greenday are scary...........I think He's scary

Lazy stones contrary to popular belief is not about Mick Jagger's Sunday lie in ...but about stones at the shoreline being lapped at by the water as it caresses the sand under a crystal blue sky lit up by intense sunlight .............very lazy but feel it needs a fretless bass to really bring that song along ....I think that a Warwick Fretless Corvette in natural finished wood would be perfect...not that I've given it much thought mind!

Confessions of a Drummer

It is not unknown for drummers to play the odd roll......but our drummer is.... role.... playing..... Gasp....scandal at last in Hot Machero .....!!!!! well I'm not one to gossip but that Barabanshik has only bought Mrs Barabanshik a Police officer's uniform!!!! complete with handcuffs allegedly.He said she looks quite nice in it....he is now trying to acquire an air hostess uniform and is considering a Russian army uniform...........it's amazing what people get upto at the weekend isn't it. I mean wifey and I spent the best part of Sunday stripping in our front room. We got it right steamy too.....you see wallpaper comes off better if you get the old steamer going.

So the aftermath of the last gig continues and the band's self imposed break reaches an end on monday when we are back rockin. We have tried to meet up and have a team viewing of the gig video and a chat about the direction of the band but there was more chance of getting the Beatles together for a meeting including Lennon and Harrison.

So I called up our singer guitarist ..Spaceboy. His young son answered the phone he can only be about three.....and after several attempts to raise his father from the front room where he was probably watching the film "Help" for the 100th time he calls out to his Dad "Earth calling Daddy come in Daddy" ...it's official he truelly is the Space boy!
One thing is for sure we all seem to be singing off the same song sheet (ahem ...ok... rubbish joke) We are all looking to steer towards producing original music ...our own creations . We'll still do some covers but we are going to let our creative side take over. But Barabanshik will hopefully be keeping his creative streak for role playing firmly under control

The Century!!!!!

So this is it the century,.....blog 100......... The first blog was published on to the 18/02/2007. It was meant to be an online journal regarding a couple in their thirties (that's wifey and I) setting up a rock band. The fact that it has degenerated into useless ramblings likened to the chatter of a baboon on speed (the blog ...not the band) is no real surprise really.

This 100th blog coincides with the gig report for probably our biggest gig yet, locker room James' 30th birthday party at the Abbey (Abbey Reading Rugby club) We were headlining the evening with two other bands and a soloist before us. The Dark Marge came along as the Hot Machero general dogs body....which consisted of being roady as well as Camera man...and a fine job he did at both (check out his handy work on the videos section of Myspace) Also in attendance was Mrs Barabanshik ,and Space Boy's ...Space Girl (couldn’t think of a better name ....thought of his “ground controller” but that would imply he is under the thumb.....which all us blokes are to a certain degree......but no the safe option......space girl!)so it was a night out for us without the kids. The set consisted of 14 songs some of which was the first time we performed them . All was going well until "There She goes" we faltered on that a bit but I think we managed to wing it....we soldiered on through the set and rocked the house with "Dakota" (featured on Myspace) It was then that Wifey did the bravest thing in our six gig existance......even braver than allowing me to sing "Don't you forget about me" in our first gigs!
For weeks now we have been struggling with Razorlight's America....I was struggiling with these two notes way up on the 18th and the 19th fret on the g-string (steady!!!!!) Wifey's part in the song is that solo guitar picking bit that plays on the quiet bits .....one mistake ...just one incey wincey mistake ........and it would stick out like a racing dogs gonads...we had decided that it wasn't upto scratch and we wouldn't play it.........so when Wifey actually anounced to the rest of us .........."I'm going to do America" at our penultimate song.....Bara wibbly wobbly banshik nearly did fall off of his little drum stool..........I had little stools of my own appearing!!!!!! So wifey stood up to the plate......well that isn't strictly true as she can only play America sat down!!!!! but you know what I mean....and off she set ....and she pulled it off ....so did we and it was good!!!!!!....

The post gig inquest began and to be honest Spaceboy, Wifey and I had our doubts regarding how well it went but upon seeing the DVD of the gig we were really pleased with it. Room for improvement but then the band has been together a year this line up only 4 months old and this was our first proper decent sized set.....with lots of new songs .....so yes quite rightly I am very pleased .

So what about the next 100 blogs....well who knows .....this first hundred has been like a soap opera....there were times of desperation .....like less than two weeks to a gig without a drummer and a singer....... times of elation. Our first gig !, when Bara kiss kiss bang bang banshik arrived and the Diddler nearly wet himself with excitement on the phone...! then of course there were the side issues .......Mother Dearest's escapades ...Jockanese K ......MBE's adventures.......Dark Marge's contributions in the form of replies to these blogs , MR T....and all the people that floated in and out of these pages ........one thing's for sure though....I'll have great fun reporting on all that happens to you in the next 100 blogs

Space Boy

It's 1500 hours on a Wednesday afternoon another day in paradise...a busy work schedule ? very much so I have a client coming in at 1700 and there is a lull in my working day just enough to impart my words of wisdom on the marauding hoards that regularly frequent these pages which are the product of my warped and sometimes insane mind. I suppose it can't be worse than Saturday when i fell out of one of our "customer's"windows onto the front garden .......tis a long story ..nothing broken just some bruised pride. So without further a do I will tell you that today I'm not feeling funny!!!!!!! nope...i sat and watched the news today eating my prawns in pitta bread and i can categorically say that it was depressing!!! (not the prawns you imbeciles!!!!!!! the news...) Doom gloom and more doom gloom...and that was just the adverts!
Well I 've got our gig to look forward to at the weekend.....except I know I'm going to open my mouth to harmonise with our singer Spaceboy (formerly known as Boots ...keep reading and I'll explain in a bit) and i know that I will let out a noise similar to the QE 2 entering harbour.....My Ipod thinks that the only two songs that exist are Good Enough by Dodgy and I want to hold your hand by the Beatles. These two songs are easily the two most irritating songs in the universe now!!!!!

I drive my car singing "I can't hide......I can't hide .....I can't hide!!!!" at the top of my voice .......some poor old woman jumped out of her skin at the traffic lights the other day as I belted out " I feel happy......inside!" So although I'm looking forward to the gig I feel as nervous as a stratocaster in Pete Townshend's grasp...but still......... three days to go and one rehearsal left.......

Yesterday I treated Freddy (my Fender Jazz Bass ) to a nice set of Rotosounds. I've been playing on the strings provided by the good people at Fender since he was purchased and decided he needed a treat.....I feel obliged to buy some for the big red monster too (My Dean semi Acoustic) especially as recently he has acquired a little dent in the back of the neck where it joins the body from a falling surround sound speaker.

Space boy? well our Mc Cartney sound alike brought with him to rehearsal a machine that helps you meditate aptly called an LSD ??!?!?!?!?!? it consists of specs which throw bright lights into you closed eyes and headphones that play pulsating sounds into your ears ......Apart from looking like an extra for Deep Space 9 or something from outer space you end up precisely that .......spaced out.......amazing! I tried it on and the effects are awesome.....after about thirty seconds voices around you start going distant and you feel like you are ..........well ..................high on drugs.........

So he is now known as Space boy!

Too old for street cred

Street cred. is there an age limit on it ?...I pose this question on the back of a conversation I had with the road runner the otherday...she said ."What 's wrong with going to a spice girls concert ?" after asking where do I start? I went into a long schpiel regarding street cred and her lack of ........this good humoured bout of shit slinging turned nasty (if having faeces slung at you can get worse!!!!!!!!!!!) Roady runner then said ...."You are too old for street cred..........!!!!!!!" hmmmm.......that can't be right can it? I mean you can commit social suicide at any age can't you. Ask Mr T at work......he admitted to the blogster extraordanaire (ie Me ) that when he first went on to Google Earth he zoomed in on his house saw his car on the drive and got his sun to rush out to see if he could see him .........I thought he was playing a trick on his boy ...but sadly no he actually thought it was live satelite footage! then there is Mother dearest of course........I mean fancy telling me that she fell asleep at her computer the other day. She lifted her head off the keyboard wiped the dribble off of the space bar deleted the 5,000 full stops from the document she was typing and took herself to bed going through the full range of abloutions climbing into bed only to realise it was only 1730 !!!!!!! then if that wasn't enough ammunition for me to assassinate any street cred she had she told me that when she eventually got to bed she decided she would listen to a podcast from a morning chat show and she dropped off to sleep. when she woke up the man on her show said "the time is 6.30" So she got up and started to go through the morning ritual of getting up and breakfast etc.......you guessed it ..................it was only 0230 in the middle of the night......Don't get me wrong I don't believe one should be a victim of fashion and wear inappropriate attire on the belief they look cool! but surely street cred is ageless. Is it indeed important? ............ If Hot Machero started playing Carpenters and Jim Reeves hits would we not completely lose street cred???!?!? there you go i rest my case!.........

Less than two weeks to the gig in Reading....we are busy rehearsing so much so Wifey fell asleep slumped over her lecky guitar whilst going over "Good Enough" for the umpteenth time last night.